Lilith's Saga
by Tsaalyo Phoenix
Summary: Following the events of Borderlands, Lilith prepares to leave Pandora in search of other Sirens. However, new events unfolding on Pandora lead her to believe that the answers she seeks may still be found on the planet.
1. Epilogue

It was freezing cold, but given the adrenaline pumping through her veins and the hundreds of still-burning corpses littering the canyon, Lilith was sweating.

She had destroyed The Destroyer. She, single-handedly, put to an end the being that had ended an entire species. It was hard to believe. The Guardians who tried to prevent the Vault from being opened had given her more trouble than the being inside. And yet, the Eridians couldn't kill it? Either they really sucked, or Maliwan made one hell of a submachine gun.

Lilith nudged one of the Destroyer's tentacles with her foot, just to make sure. Getting no response, she stepped back and emptied a clip all over the great being, each incendiary round setting a small fire in the wounds they tore open. The Destroyer didn't even twitch. It really was dead.

Lilith climbed up onto the creature, moving towards its giant mouth. This thing had eaten Commandant Steele, and Lilith spent the better part of the ensuing firefight cursing it out for that. She had come to Pandora solely because she heard of another girl like her on the planet. She hadn't heard of the "Vault", nor did she care about the riches or women that were supposedly inside. And the second she came face to face with Steele, and saw her tattoos, she knew that this was the "Siren" she was looking for.

And ten seconds after that, before Lilith could say anything, Steele was impaled and eaten alive.

Lilith pried the Destroyer's mouth open, hoping that, by some miracle, Steele was still alive. But, staring down its throat, smelling rotting decay, she found no sign of Steele.

Lilith sighed and climbed off the creature. That was it. All this time and effort to find another Siren, and she had learned nothing. She turned back, spat on the creature, and walked to the New-U station. With the Vault Key strapped to her back, and various weapons and devices holstered and pocketed, she brought up the menu. Patricia Tannis was foaming at the mouth, wanting the key, but that could wait. All the equipment Lilith had picked up was getting a little too heavy. Lilith selected New Haven, and vanished in a flash of light.

The Destroyer was already obscured by the falling snow, the flames from Lilith's incendiary rounds extinguished by the bitter cold. From the sky, a single Sera Guardian descended on the creature. It hovered a few feet above it, slowly flying over, examining every square inch of it. It eventually came to a stop, hovering over its mouth.

Suddenly, the Guardian activated some kind of scanner, shining a bright blue light into the Destroyer's gaping maw.

* * *

In a flash of light, Lilith appeared at the New-U station in New Haven. The sun was starting to set, and many of the citizens had already turned in for the night. Lilith briefly looked around for any irksome bandits, then made her way to the nearest of Marcus's weapon vendors. The Vault may not have been real, but just as good was all the money Lilith had received simply by selling everything from the people she had killed. After selling some weapons and mods, Lilith had collected another $40,000. For two hours of killing people, that was pretty damn good.

The vendor spouted a usual recording from Marcus Kincaid to thank her for her business, and Lilith turned to leave. Suddenly, the vendor spoke again.

"You, bounty hunter, have I got a deal for you." Marcus said through his vendor.

"...alright, punch it up." Lilith replied, walking up to the vendor's screen.

"No, no, it's not available to my usual customers." Marcus explained. "Come to my store. Bring your credits."

Curious, Lilith began her walk to Marcus's place. Marcus was always good for fantastic weapons, but after this, Lilith had no intention of sticking around Pandora. With Commandant Steele dead, Lilith's next move would be to investigate the sightings she had heard of other potential "Sirens". She had met many people on Pandora, and it would be hard to leave them alone on this desolate wasteland of a planet, but she had already made this decision. The other bounty hunters on this planet could deal with keeping settlements like New Haven and Fyrestone safe. Lilith was some kind of magician, she had no idea why, and her first priority was figuring that out. Call that selfish if you want, but what would YOU do if you couldn't remember any of your life before three months ago? Would your big concern be figuring out why, or sitting around preventing criminals from killing people before Skags could do it?

Lilith walked into Marcus's store. Marcus had his back turned to her, something in his hands.

"Ah, bounty hunter, hello." Marcus said with a smile. "Turns out the Vault was a fraud, eh?"

"Oh, not true, there was a giant tentacle monster in there." Lilith replied, shaking her head. "What a waste of time."

"Sorry to hear that. Believe me, I am." Marcus said. "I was looking forward to helping you sell all those goods with you... for a cut, of course."

"Of course." Lilith said with a smirk.

"And, you know, I'd keep the women, you could keep the power." Marcus continued. "...unless you'd like some women too. I'd be willing to share."

Lilith rolled her eyes. "Of course you would. What do you have for me?"

Marcus turned to face her, a submachine gun in his hand.

"Alright, alright." Marcus said. "I've been tracking your buying habits, and you seem to favor Maliwan weapons."

"I don't really think about it. I just go for whoever gives me the most burn for my buck." Lilith replied.

"Yep, and that's Maliwan." Marcus said. "Well, I managed to get my hands on one of Maliwan's brand new weapons. This beauty is the Maliwan 5CR 34M Pyre. 60 shot magazine, caps off 12 rounds a second, x4 magnification and accurate enough to castrate a Skag at 200 yards. And if anyone survives a shot from this, they'll go off like they've been doused in kerosene."

"Sounds good, gimme." Lilith said, grabbing for it.

Marcus quickly moved the gun from her grasp.

"Ah ah ah, nothing in this world is free, my lady." Marcus said with a smile.

"Aww, come on, no deals for a frequent customer?" Lilith asked.

"The deal is that I'm offering it to you at all, sweetie." Marcus replied. "I'd normally sooner give up my right hand than a new toy like this."

"Well, I'd hate to kill your sex life like that." Lilith said. "So, how much."

"Since you were coy enough to jump on my set-up there, $250,000." Marcus replied.

"...there's no way it costs that." Lilith protested.

Marcus simply extended a hand, waiting for the money.

Lilith groaned and started counting the credits.

"I should just shoot you with it and take the money back." She said, handing them over.

"Yeah, well, you won't." Marcus said, taking the money with a huge smile and handing over the weapon. "Pleasure doing business with you."

"Yeah, well, don't get used to it." Lilith said, admiring her new toy. "I'm on the next ride off this rock."

"That's too bad." Marcus said. "But before you go, Governor Piece has another job for you."

"I really don't care about doing any more little errands." Lilith replied.

"From what she's told me, it's more than just going around town turning generators on." Marcus said. "Something pretty big. A chance to use that thing at least once on Pandora?"

"Meh, alright." Lilith said, walking out.


	2. Trap

Lilith stepped into Governor Pierce's office. As usual, her desk was cluttered with papers. What exactly all of it meant, Lilith had no idea. It's not like this ramshackle dustball of a town was all that concerned about building codes or property limits.

Pierce looked up from her papers and smiled.

"You, hello." She said. "...you know, I don't think I've ever gotten your name."

"...Lilith." Lilith replied.

As a bounty hunter, she wasn't that fond of throwing her name around. It made it that much easier for vengeful comrades of the people she kills to try to hunt her down.

"Cool." Pierce said. "The Vault was a whole lot of nothing, I hear?"

"And the ironic thing is, with Steele's authority and her soldiers' weapons, they probably would have been disappointed with whatever power and weapons could have been there." Lilith replied.

"Ha! Didn't think of that." Pierce said. "By the way, you still have the key? Patricia Tannis asked me to tell you that she'll buy it off you."

"And she told Marcus that, too. And she told me. And probably several other people." Lilith said with a smirk. "I'll let her sweat a little bit, but I'll give it to her before I leave."

Pierce's smile faded. An awkward pause.

"You're... leaving Pandora?" Pierce finally asked.

"Uh, yeah? There's nothing else for me here." Lilith replied.

"I see... but we're trying to eke out an existence here, Lilith, and we need help from people like you." Pierce said. "We can barely stave off those deranged bandits. We won't survive Steele's forces coming to finish what they started at Old Haven!"

Lilith sighed.

"You people forget that I didn't come here to be the hero." Lilith said. "I came here for... personal reasons, and now that that's done, I've got no reason to stick around."

"How about for the innocent people who've spent years dying here?!" Pierce suddenly yelled. "The colonization project has been abandoned, Dahl doesn't give a damn about us, people like you are all we have left!"

Pierce had never really shown any signs of stress at her situation. Lilith didn't expect this outburst. Would Pierce go the way of Patricia in another couple hundred days, happy that her partner was being eaten alive because his chair was more comfortable?

"Look, I'm a bounty hunter. Marcus said you have something for me." Lilith said, trying to change the subject.

"Right, of course, bounty hunter." Pierce said, her happiness to see Lilith clearly gone. "The short version is: our citizens have been disappearing every night for the past week."

"Any idea why?" Lilith asked.

"Last night, we got our reason." Pierce continued. "Just outside, by the New-U station, bandits rode in and kidnapped three of our people."

"Great, more bandits." Lilith said with an eyeroll. "Just point them out on a map and I'll be back in an hour."

"Not that simple." Pierce replied. "We have no idea where their camp is. Not even one lead."

"So what do you want me to do, then?" Lilith asked.

"Well, here's my plan. Follow me." Pierce said, walking around her desk to the door.

Lilith and Pierce took the short walk to the New-U station. Pierce pointed at a patch of dirt nearby, clearly the spot of a violent struggle.

"That's where the kidnapping happened, so if they come back, it'll probably be to this area again." Pierce said. "So my plan is to bait them with another hostage to take, and as they leave, you follow."

"...alright, that'll work. I can hide in one of Scooter's Runners right over there." Lilith replied, pointing to the right by a broken down one. "Who's the bait?"

"Me." Pierce said.

Lilith gave Pierce an odd look. She really was going the way of Patricia.

"...why you?" Lilith asked.

"I can't in good conscience ask a fellow citizen to do something like this." Pierce replied. "It's called being selfless."

The way Pierce spat out that final part was a clear shot at Lilith's desire to leave Pandora. Lilith sighed.

"So you're just going to be standing here?" Lilith asked. "That'll seem a little obvious."

"I know." Pierce replied. "That's why I'll be here under the guise of repairing the New-U station."

"...do you know HOW to repair one of these things?" Lilith asked.

"Hell no." Pierce replied. "But it just needs to look like it's damaged and that I'm trying to fix it, and it won't look-"

Lilith raised her Maliwan and fired a shot into it. The hologram immediately cut out, sparks flew, and a small fire erupted, creating a column of black smoke.

"Warn a person before you do that!" Pierce protested.

"You wanted it broken? It's broken." Lilith replied.

"Yeah, now we need to have Scooter actually repair this thing." Pierce said.

The moon had disappeared from the horizon, leaving the distant sky with a faint, red glow. The fact that the planet derived sunlight indirectly from its moon was difficult to get used to.

"It happened not too long after sundown. Moondown, whatever." Pierce said. "Go hide."

Lilith walked over to the Catch-a-Ride station and spawned her Runner. She hopped in and backed it up right beside the broken down one. She turned the vehicle off, hopped out, and crawled under it. She gave Pierce a thumbs up, and Pierce went to work pretending to know how to repair a New-U station.

Lilith watched Pierce. This plan was insane. Not so much the concept, of course; with no idea where the bandits were coming from, it only made sense to follow them back to their camp. The insane part was Pierce volunteering to be the bait. These bandits were deranged. Pandora wasn't like Earth, where a woman's worst fear of being alone at night was being raped. Lilith hadn't even heard of that happening here. Most of these people were cannibals. Half the bandits Lilith came across tried to hack her apart with improvised cleavers and eat her right there on the spot, screaming 'more meat for meeeee!' as they ran at her. But then, what could you expect from people who live in a world with no edible plantlife, with only Skags to provide them with animal meat? Most of these bandits had more pronounced ribcages than the Olsen Twins. They went days without any food. These people had been reduced to the level of animals.

And yet, Pierce was standing there, waiting for them to come and take her. Again, Lilith couldn't help but draw parallels between her and Patricia, who apparently worked with the bandits for months. Pierce really was cracking under the pressure, if she had no problem with what she was about to do. Not only did she have no problem with it, but she looked down on Lilith for not wanting to stick around Pandora and do the same. What Lilith saw as insane, Pierce called selflessness. And yet, Lilith couldn't help but feel guilty, looking at how far Pierce was willing to go to protect these people, while she couldn't wait to leave.

After about an hour, Lilith heard another Runner approaching. As it came closer, the insane, cowboy shouts of bandits rose above the gunning engine. As Lilith watched, Pierce turned around to face the approaching Runner.

The runner slammed on the brakes a few feet from Pierce, spraying her with dirt. Pierce staggered back, wiping her eyes.

Three bandits occupied the runner; one driving, one gunning, one hanging off the side. All three wielded combat rifles.

"Aww, what's the matter, did we mess up that pretty face?" The one hanging off the side asked, jumping off.

"As governor of New Haven, I order you to get the hell out!" Pierce yelled.

The bandits just laughed. The one who jumped off the Runner advanced on her.

Pierce sprung forward and punched at him, but he simply grabbed her hand. Pierce responded by giving him a hard backhand across the jaw. This staggered him, and she followed up by kicking him square in his fun parts.

"Oooohhh nice!" The driver yelled with a laugh.

The bandit was clearly in pain, but was still holding Pierce's hand. He twisted it hard, bending Pierce's arm awkwardly, and gave her a hard backhand of his own. Pierce yelped in pain, blood escaping her mouth. The bandit dragged Pierce to the Runner, grabbed her head, and slammed it hard into the good. Pierce stumbled back, holding her face, blood from her nose trickling between her fingers. The bandit finished his attack with a hard punch to her gut. Pierce, winded, fell to the ground, wheezing. Blood splatter covered the lower half of her face, staining the dirt.

"Alright, alright, we need her alive." The gunner said.

The bandit grabbed Pierce by her arm and yanked her up, dragging her to the Runner. He tossed her into the driver's seat and climbed onto the side. With more cowboy laughs, the driver gunned the Runner into reverse, spun around in a wide spray of dirt, and sped off.

Wasting no time, Lilith climbed out from under her runner and jumped into the driver's seat. The bandits likely wouldn't hear her over their own engine, so she simply had to give them a few seconds head start so they hopefully wouldn't notice her in the dark. After that wait, Lilith sped out of New Haven, following them.


	3. Inside the Mind

The bandit driver's name was not important. In truth, he had forgotten it long ago. He had been a gang member all his life, and after somehow finding himself on Pandora, he found his way into a truly ruthless group of "bandits", as those bastards in New Haven and other settlements called them. His name now was Viper. Quick, silent, deadly, merciless.

Viper always laughed at the idea of being called a bandit. First, everyone in his prison was sent to Pandora as part of a colonization attempt by... Dahl? Atlas? Jacobs? Viper couldn't remember anymore; they were all the same heartless, greedy company to him. The point was, they ditched everyone on this worthless dustball, forcing them to mine their precious rocks for them, and then just ditched them all here, forcing everyone here to fend for themselves. And now, when people like Viper simply tried to survive, to take what they could to keep going another day from the selfish cowards in the settlements who managed to hoard all the good stuff, THEY were treated like the bad guys? Like "bandits"? The people of New Haven were no different from the people at Atlas. They were heartless, they were greedy, they had no right to live.

And, because of all this, what the group of bandits Viper worked for were going to do to each and every citizen of New Haven made Viper smile.

Viper's bandits had stolen explosives and blasted a path through a narrow mountain chain in the Eastern Rust Commons, and found their way into a protected valley, off the GPS maps. A small hole in the mountain, barely wide enough for a Runner and concealed by rubble; nobody would find this path into their valley. Now that they were through it, they were home free.

The woman they kidnapped was at Viper's feet, crumpled into that small space. Her shirt was soaked in blood from her nose and mouth. He looked at her, and she made eye contact with him.

"You keep your eyes down, bitch!" Viper yelled, kicking her hard in the stomach. She coughed up more blood and looked down.

She deserved no better.

The valley was small, and aside from the occasional swarm of Spiderants, uninhabited. Viper's bandits had build a sheetmetal building in front of the mouth of a small cave here, and more or less fixed up the inside. It was a perfect hideout, and a perfect place to do what they did. The bandit groups' leader was most pleased with their work.

Suddenly, Viper thought he saw a brief flash of blue light beside him. He looked, seeing his partner, Buzzsaw, hanging off the side of the Runner. Buzzsaw apparently didn't notice anything. Viper paused, then shrugged it off. They had arrived at their camp.

The structure was very small, basically just a sheetmetal shack. It was kept this way on purpose. It hid the cave from curious bounty hunters, and was small and pathetic enough to be ignored on sight.

Viper pulled up in front of the structure.

"Time to get out!" He yelled at his hostage, grabbing her and unceremoniously throwing her out to the ground.

Viper climbed out, when suddenly, his partner on the rocket turret screamed in pain and fell to the ground in a flash of blue light. Viper finally realized what this was – static sniper fire.

Viper pulled out his repeater – a double barrelled model with an attached slicing blade – and opened fire blindly where the shot came from. The hostage had begun to crawl away. Viper quickly dove down, grabbed her, and yanked her up, holding her as a shield in front of him.

"BUZZSAW!!" Viper yelled, realizing that he still hadn't let go of the Runner.

Then, he realized the blood trickling out of Buzzsaw's mouth. The blue light must have been him being shot in the back of the head. The electric shock had constricted his muscles, keeping him holding on even in death. Viper breathed heavily, realizing he was already the last one left.

"...show yourself! Come out!" Viper yelled into the dark, pressing the blade of his repeater against his hostage's throat. He squinted into the dark, and noticed another Runner had parked a small distance away. He also realized a figure approaching him, sniper rifle in hand.

Viper screamed in rage and opened fire on the figure. It kept approaching, and he couldn't tell if he was missing or if the figure had a shield. He kept firing, screaming the whole time.

Suddenly, the figure exploded in a wave of fire, which illuminated half the valley for a brief second.

Viper stared at where the figure was, perplexed. All was deathly silent now, save for the gunner's dying breaths. He had been shot in the side, near his kidneys, and would survive for a few more minutes. Viper aimed at his gunner, hand trembling, and put a pair of bullets into his skull. Blood splattered across the dirt, and the wheezing stopped. His troubles were over, and, frankly, he would cook up nicely.

Viper looked around in a panic, pressing the blade back against his hostages throat.

Suddenly, another explosion, this time right behind him. Viper spun around, keeping his hostage in front of him, and came face to face with a red-haired woman.

Before Viper could react, he noticed searing pain at his back. He screamed and looked behind him, and screamed again when he saw he was on fire.

His gun arm was suddenly yanked away by the woman, his hostage immediately diving away. Viper still held onto his gun, his knuckles white, clenching onto the gun mostly from the pain of the fire. Viper couldn't really tell what happened next. He knew he was kicked once, a roundhouse to the side of the head, but then, he was quickly spun around. The woman forced his gun hand to his neck, and in one quick motion, forced him to slice his own throat with his own weapon.

Viper was kicked to the ground. His screams were now bloody gurgles, his windpipe slashed with blood flowing in. From the light of the flames at his back, he had time to see blood pouring from his neck before he heard one final gunshot and everything went black.


	4. Little Cave of Horrors

The final bandit was down, throat slashed deep, back on fire. Lilith calmly raised her Repeater – a Maliwan, with such lovely explosive rounds – and put a single shot into the back of his head. The round detonated, his head erupting in a wave of messy chunks.

"Aww, did that hurt?" Lilith asked with a smile.

Lilith holstered her Repeater and looked at Governor Pierce. Her bleeding seemed to have stopped, but she was still covered in the blood she had already lost. She had wiped her face in her shirt, leaving smears of blood across it and totally saturating her shirt.

The blood was only half the story. The bleeding had stopped; that was all over and done with. The look on Pierce's face, however, said it all. She was breathing hard, on her hands and knees, staring at the ground ahead. She clearly didn't fully realize what she volunteered to do, and on some level was traumatized by what happened. Lilith felt for her, but at the same time, this plan was Pierce's idea, and she insisted on being the bait.

"...you did good." Lilith said.

Pierce gave a weak laugh. "I look like hell, I know. All the more reason I couldn't in good conscience make a citizen do it."

Lilith helped Pierce to her feet, and looked at the structure.

"So, I'll be back in ten?" Lilith asked.

"You think I came here to wait outside?" Pierce asked, apparently shaking off her trauma. "I'm finding out what happened to my people."

"You'll just slow me down." Lilith said flatly. "Do you even know how to use a gun?"

Pierce picked up the bandits' fallen Repeater.

"It's not complicated." Pierce replied.

Lilith shook her head, bemused. It was looking more and more like Pierce was losing it. Either that, or she was incredibly brave. Funny how the line between bravery and insanity was always so obscured.

"...at least take this one instead. That one's a toy." Lilith said, handing Pierce her Repeater.

Lilith had three weapons on her now. Her recently purchased Maliwan Pyre, a Maliwan Caustic submachine gun for some fun with chemistry, and a Maliwan incendiary sniper. She favored her incendiary weaponry, loving the screams of her targets burning to death. In that regard, Lilith was always disappointed when those psychotic bandits somehow managed to grow immune to the flames, setting themselves on fire and charging her. Sure, that's what melting them with the Caustic was for, but it just wasn't as satisfying.

All this probably made her one hell of a sadist, but who cares.

"Alright, Pierce, I've been in little playhouses like this before. I've seen what happens in them." Lilith said. "What Sledge did to Fyrestone's people was beyond words, and-"

Pierce cut her off by raising a hand. "You're not changing my mind, Lilith." She said. "I've been trying for over a damn year to keep Haven going. Half of us were already butchered back in the ACTUAL Haven, and now we're stuck in that rat-infested dump, getting picked off one by one by these people right here! I'm killing as many of these bastards as I can!"

Lilith sighed, realizing this was an argument she couldn't win.

"Alright, let's go." She said. "...don't lose my gun."

The 'door' was simply a sheet of metal, leaning against the opening to the structure. Lilith pushed it aside, and looked inside.

There was nothing at all in this building. It was just bare dirt and unfinished walls, with the cave entrance itself straight ahead. Along once side of the cave walls was a string of lights, one bulb every ten feet, connected by a cable like a string of Christmas tree lights. This portion of the cave was simply a narrow tunnel, continuing straight a head for a few dozen feet before turning to the right. No sound was heard.

Lilith calmly walked down the tunnel, Maliwan Pyre ready. Pierce was much more careful in her steps, having to strain to keep pace while being so silent. Lilith smirked. There was always this idea, probably spawned from those stupid videogames that people play for some reason, that you always had to be deathly silent in situations like this, because you never knew when there'd be a room full of people who'd know to chase you down and open fire the second they heard a noise. The simple fact is that these people would most likely simply assume that the approaching footsteps were just another member of their group. And considering that these bandits were expecting more struggling, screaming hostages to be dragged in, Lilith could march in blowing a trumpet and be in just as much danger as if she was trying to sneak in without a sound.

Around the bend, the tunnel entered into a large cavern. It was mostly empty, with a few rocks scattered about, and stretched out ahead for about feet. At the end of the cavern was a wall, made entirely of scraps of sheet metal tied and bolted together. The door built into this wall was chain-link. As Lilith and Pierce approached, it became clear that this was a sliding door, and padlocked.

Lilith briefly tried pulling on the lock, which of course didn't work. Lilith calmly grabbed Pierce's repeater, pressed it to the lock, and fired a single shot. The round detonated, the blast echoing several times in the cave. The lock fell to the rock floor, the clattering echoing just as noisily.

"Lilith!" Pierce whispered loudly, grabbing the Repeater back. "They'll hear us!"

"So? Same thing will happen the second she shoot one of them." Lilith replied. "I told you, you should just wait outside."

"That's not happening." Pierce said.

Lilith sighed and slid the door open. Upon looking into this next area, she had to stop and take a moment to digest what she saw.

This segment of the cavern ended just ten feet away, narrowing out into another tunnel. Along both sides of this room were what seemed to be operating tables, five on each side, of a simple wood and four leg design. Eight of them were covered in blood, vaguely humanoid silhouettes outlined in the stains. The blood had dripped down these tables and stained the floor, where the surgeons had left footprints of blood all around. The two on the far right, however, still had bodies on them.

Lilith was blocking the door, so Pierce still hadn't seen what was there.

"...maybe you should wait outside." Lilith said.

"Damn it, Lilith!" Pierce said, shoving Lilith in. "For the last time, I'm... oh god."

Pierce bent over, putting her hands on her knees, looking like she was about to throw up.

Lilith aimed at the two bodies and approached them. This could have been some kind of setup, after all. Once she got close, however, it was clear that these two weren't getting up anytime soon. Both of them, one male, one female, had undergone the same operation. They had been scalped, had a large chunk of skull from their foreheads removed, and had their brains messed with. It wasn't clear what exactly was done, but it was clear that some kind of blade had sliced up and removed brain matter.

Pierce approached the two bodies, trembling.

"...Pat and Karen." She whispered, her voice quivering. "They were kidnapped last night... what the hell did they do to them?"

"I don't know." Lilith replied, a little too calmly considering the situation. "Didn't you say they took three last night?"

"...Robert." Pierce said slowly. "We have to save him!"

Pierce started to run toward the tunnel, but Lilith grabbed her.

"You won't do him any favors by running in without thinking." Lilith said.

Pierce looked like she was about to reply, but instead just wiped the sweat from her face, still trembling and turning pale. She went to take a step forward, and had to stop herself from slipping in a particularly thick puddle of blood. Realizing this, she again looked like she was going throw up, and even gagged, but couldn't actually do it.

"...that's it, Pierce, you're not coming." Lilith said flatly.

This time, Pierce didn't argue.

"Take the Runner and park a little while from the entrance, so they won't notice you if more bandits come in." Lilith said. "I'll get you on Echo when I'm done."

Pierce nodded, and after looking at the bodies one final time, walked through the sheet metal wall.

"Wait, one more thing." Lilith said.

Pierce turned to look at her, and Lilith unslung her sniper and tossed it to her. She wouldn't be needing in it the confines of a cave.

"Don't shoot unless you're absolutely sure they'll notice you. Just Echo me and let them come in." Lilith said.

Pierce nodded. She was starting to recover from the shock, but she turned and began walking out anyway. Lilith gave a sigh of relief. Pierce's heart was in the right place, but she likely had no real practice in a firefight. She wouldn't survive ten seconds in one.

Lilith waited until Pierce was out of sight, then continued down the tunnel, briefly thinking about the bodies. Why would the bandits do this to them? Even Sledge's work was for the obvious purpose of making a mess and scaring the hell out of intruders, but this looked like some kind of calculated surgery.

The tunnel kept going straight, but curved upward for a few dozen feet. Lilith made it to the top, where the path levelled off and opened into into what appeared to be a series of caverns. Up ahead, the cavern branched off to the left. As well, the far side had another sheet metal wall system, another chain link door blocking the way.

To the left, leaning against the wall, was a body, leaning on a crate of ammunition. Judging by the trail of blood, this man had been injured, crawled over to the crate perhaps hoping for a weapon, but only found the bullets. Then, it looked like something started tearing chunks out of him. A skag? Spiderants?

Lilith then noticed various items scattered along the ground. There were mostly pipes, baseball bats, and other bludgeoning weapons, some of which were coated in blood splatter. To her right, against the wall, was one of Marcus's weapon machines. It too had some splatter. Lilith tried to use it, as others had apparently done by the looks of the bloody fingerprints, but it wasn't responding.

Perplexed, Lilith walked forward, looking at what was in the portion of the cavern branching to the left. More blunt weapons were scattered about. In this part, however, there were large, dried patches of blood in several areas of the floor, as well as some on the walls. And standing in this area, back turned to her, was a man.

Lilith quickly raised her Pyre. This man wasn't dressed like a typical bandit, but his arms were stained with blood.

"...Robert?" Lilith asked.

The man spun around to face her, and Lilith took a cautious step back.

The man's mouth, chin, and shirt were covered in blood. He had several bruises on his visible skin, a black eye, and what looked like a broken arm, but he didn't look like he was in pain. His forehead was also heavily stitched up, sealing wound very similar to the ones on the bodies of Pat and Karen, as well as stitches across his hairline.

"...what the hell did they do to you?" Lilith asked.

The man responded with a feral growl. He dove to the ground, grabbing a bloodstained golf club, and ran for Lilith. Lilith simply pulled the trigger, pumping burning shots into his neck and face. Immediately, the man fell to the ground, dead and on fire.

"Ha, nice." Lilith said, admiring her new submachine gun.

Before Lilith could think about this insane man, the chain link slid open. Lilith could see several armed bandits on the other side of this wall, and they were all aiming at her. The nearest one, a shirtless, masked man with an improvised cleaver, laughed maniacally.

"Time to play!" He yelled, and charged.

Lilith raised her gun and opened fire, the rounds tearing into the deranged man. He screamed as the rounds burst into flame inside him, quickly engulfing him. Lilith shifted her rain of bullets to the others, not bothering to waste ammo on ending his suffering. She ran to the left, evading the returning combat rifle fire. Backing down the left area of the cavern, the bandits would have to come through the door to face her. And as they came one by one Lilith dropped them with quick bursts to the head. One by one, their heads exploded in waves of burning flesh and bone, their decapitated bodies falling on each other.

The wave of bandit stopped, but Lilith could hear more on the other side of the wall, waiting for her. Lilith smirked and reloaded, waiting for them to change their mind. After a few seconds, though, it was clear that they wouldn't.

Lilith concentrated, and suddenly erupted in a wave of energy and fire, transported to some kind of overlapping reality. She ran, much faster than any human otherwise could, around the corner and through the door. Six armed men were waiting there, rifles trained on the door. Upon approaching them, though they were each jolted with electricity. As they began to panic, Lilith reentered reality in a massive wave of fire. Each man began to scream, desperately trying to pat themselves out.

They were already being electrocuted and on fire, so Lilith raised her Caustic submachine gun and opened fire on them. The rounds tore into them and erupted in waves of acid, melting them from the inside out. Subjected to all this, their screaming soon stopped as they were all melted into gelatinous blobs of burning flesh.

Lilith laughed, reloaded, and looked around.

The bandits seemed to have started their usual haphazard construction from this point on. The walls had sheet metal lashed and bolted to them. Lockers, shelves, and boxes lined the walls, mostly filled with worthless crap. Lilith went through every locker, occasionally finding and pocketing some money and ammunition.

This portion of cavern started a downward incline and drifted to the right. Lilith walked down, looking around. Like every other bandit hideout, this was squalor. Dirty cots, skag vomit and other bodily excretions everywhere, burning fires cooking skags and human limbs, and garbage everywhere. Curious, though, was the lack of misspelled profanity written on the walls, an the lack of human skulls hung up or piled everywhere. These bandits seemed to have a different agenda from all the others.

A feral growl coming from the right made Lilith jump back and raise her Pyre.

Three people were chained by the necks to the wall. Just like the first insane man, these people had blood dripping from their mouths, and the same stitching up of brain surgery on their foreheads and hairlines. They kept lunging at Lilith, the chains keeping them in place. They occasionally yanked at the chains and at the shackles on their necks, but were mostly oblivious to both.

Lilith looked at their feet, and noticed bones, skag and human, scattered about. There was even a human arm there, still wearing clothing typical of these bandits.

A low chuckle came from behind Lilith.

Lilith spun around, and saw a doorway in the opposite wall. The room it led into was dark, and Lilith could just barely make out the silhouette of a man in it. She quickly raised her Pyre as the man slowly stepped out.

He was a towering man, easily seven feet tall, and built like a tank. While his arms were crudely armor plated, he was topless, and a bullseye was painted in blood on his chest. His legs, as well, were crudely plated. He held a combat rifle, and Lilith noticed a rocket launcher strapped to his back.

"They're fun little dogs, aren't they?" The man asked, his voice rough. "The boys and I like to sic'em on little punks who try to get tough with us, see who wins."

"...what the hell did you do to them?" Lilith asked.

"What, me? Nothing." The man replied. "From what I heard, you set the guy who did it on fire."

He laughed. "Serves him right, the wimpy little brainiac."

Without another word, Lilith raised her Pyre and opened fire. The man stumbled back in surprise, but his shield took the shots. With an enraged cry, he rushed forward and smacked Lilith back into the waiting arms of the psychotic victims. They immediately grabbed at her, tearing at her clothes and biting at her. Lilith screamed in surprise, though her own shield protected her. She fought free of them, but was grabbed by the man and thrown clear across the room. She hit the ground hard and rolled into the wall.

Lilith scrambled to her feet as the man laughed, quickly realizing that she lost both her submachine guns. She was unarmed. The man unslung his rocket launcher and took aim at Lilith. With a louder laugh, he fired.

Lilith quickly exploded in a wave of energy, the rocket passing through her and hitting the wall. Wasting no time, she charged forward, jumped into the air, and reentered reality in a wave of acid. The acid washed over the man, clearly taxing his shield. Still in the air, Lilith landed in the man, knocking him back a step. She immediately grabbed his combat rifle and tried to yank it away. The man was in shock from what just happened, panicking at the acid quickly depleting his shield, but managed to hold on. He dropped his rocket launcher and grabbed the rifle in both hands, managing to aim it at her gut. Before Lilith could react, he opened fire.

Her shield took the bullets, but was being drained quickly. She headbutted him, stunning him, and moved the rifle away just as her shield was depleted. That's when she noticed the grenade hooked to his belt. She kicked him square in the bullseye on his chest, knocking him back another step, and grabbed at the grenade. She got a hold of it, but he quickly shoved her away. The force of it knocked her to one knee. He readied his rifle, and she prepared to leap at him, but realized that she had in fact primed the grenade.

She quickly jumped back as he opened fire, and the grenade exploded, but not before two bullets took Lilith in her right leg. They both screamed, drowned out by the explosion. His shield was depleted, and severe burns now plagued his left side and head. As Lilith struggled to get to her feet, he held his face and screamed again, in pain and rage. His rifle destroyed, he charged at Lilith, swinging a big right hand. Lilith ducked under it, and with an uppercut motion, hit him with a blast of energy from her palm. Seemingly unaffected, he wound up and tried for a swinging backfist strike. Lilith quickly jumped back, straining from her leg wounds, and rushed forward to hit him with another energy strike. He grabbed her hand, yanked her close, and kneed her hard in the gut. Winded, Lilith didn't have time to react to his followup punch square to the face. She was knocked across the room again, hitting the ground and rolling to the wall.

Lilith's nose was broken, and though her shield had a healing effect, her leg still had two open wounds.

The man rushed towards her, hands ready to grab. Lilith waited, and the second he got close, she threw her legs up and kicked him in his burned side. He let out a pained scream, giving Lilith time to get to her feet. Before she could do anything else, though, he went for a punch. Lilith ducked down, his fist hitting the rock wall. She heard a distinct snap at that moment, something in his fist breaking. Wasting no time, Lilith thrust both her hands at his crotch, hitting it with an energy blast with both hands. He screamed, grabbing himself with both hands. Lilith quickly sprung up, hitting an energy blast with both hands to the burned half of his face. He stumbled to the side, tripped, and fell onto his stomach.

Lilith's leg was mostly healed. The man pushed himself to his hands and knees, and Lilith gave him a running kick to the temple. He hit the ground again, and Lilith mercilessly stomped his head into the ground over and over. He screamed in pain and rage, trying to get up after each kick. He eventually managed to smack Lilith's leg away, knocking her on top of him.

The man rolled onto his back, Lilith falling onto her back beside him. The man quickly got up and jumped on top of her, pinning her down. He held onto her throat with one hand, holding her to the ground, and went for a final punch.

Lilith quickly focused, and exploded in a wave of fire. The mans' fist hit the ground, and with no shield, his bare flesh took the full force of the flames. He screamed, knocked up and onto his back from the explosion, and tried desperately to pat himself out. Lilith got to her her feet, walked right up to him, and reentered reality with another explosion of flame. He screamed again, rolling around, Liliths' supernatural flames refusing to go out.

Lilith watched him roll around in agony, then looked around, finally finding her guns. She calmly walked over to them and picked them up.

The man was still screaming, though he was losing his voice. He was still on fire, so Lilith chose her Caustic submachine gun. She walked right up to him, waited for him to roll onto his back, and pressed her foot down on his chest, holding him in place. Her shield had begun to recharge, protecting her from the flames. She aimed at his head, and he looked up at her, his face full of agony and rage.

"Really good effort." Lilith said, and pulled the trigger.

His brains splattered on the rocks, and after a few seconds, his face began to cave in, his head melting from the inside out.

Lilith breathed a sigh of relief and removed her foot. All was silent now, save for the feral growls of the insane victims. Lilith raised her Pyre and gave each of them a burst of fire to the head, killing each instantly. The silence that followed was a welcome change.

Lilith wiped the blood from her face, her broken nose mostly mended by her shield. She looked around, and her eyes fell on the doorway the big man came from. She smiled, knowing that a treasure trove of valuables likely waited inside. Readying her Pyre, she walked to the doorway and looked inside.

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. For some reason, the light system in this room was broken. Once they adjusted, Lilith stepped inside.

The room was small, maybe ten by fifteen feet. There was a dirty cot, a shelf full of odd items, and a red crate. Lilith's eyes lit up when she saw that crate, and she quickly opened it up. Inside, aside from the usual ammunition and grenades, was an odd looking rifle. It took Lilith a moment to realize what it was, but she laughed with happiness when she did. It was Eridian. Holstering her submachine guns, she picked the rifle up. If memory served, Dahl called this variant an Eridian Lightning, a type of Eridian sniper rifle.

Almost giddy at this find, Lilith gathered the ammunition and grenades, and walked to the shelf.

It had various useless things, like cups and ragged clothing, but one thing caught Lilith's eye. It was a metallic, grey sphere, about the size of a golf ball, with a faint, blue glow. Lilith reached out and touched it, and the glow seemed to intensify. Puzzled, she picked it up, turning it over. It was perfectly smooth, and had almost no weight. Eridian?

Lilith pocketed it and turned to leave, and suddenly came face to face with a glowing blue apparition.

Startled, Lilith jumped back and tripped over herself, falling to the ground. Her eyes closed for a brief moment when she landed, and the second she opened them again, the apparition was gone.

Lilith looked around, slightly panicked. Nothing was around her, and there was no sound. She cautiously got to her feet, looking around for the apparition. She tried quickly spinning around, seeing if it would appear right behind her again. But nothing happened.

"...I must be losing it." Lilith remarked, and began walking out of the cave.


	5. The Patricia Triplets

Lilith stepped into the night. After wiping the sweat and blood from her face, she spoke into her Echo device.

"I just stepped out, Pierce, drive up." Lilith said.

"Thank god." Pierce said with a sigh of relief. "On my way."

Lilith heard an engine start up, and to her right, a pair of headlights came to life. The Runner slowly drove up, Pierce behind the wheel.

"...you look like hell." Pierce remarked.

Lilith looked down, just noticing her shirt had stained with blood from her previously broken nose.

"Yeah, well, you should see the guy who lost." Lilith replied with a smirk.

Pierce gave a small smile, though her face was full of hatred at the mention of any of the people in the cave.

"Did you make him pay?" Pierce asked.

"...he was still on fire when I left." Lilith replied.

"...too good for him." Pierce said "I'll drive."

Lilith climbed into the gunner's seat, and Pierce took off.

"Did you find out what happened to the citizens?" Pierce yelled back.

"...brain surgery, turning them into... mindless attack dogs." Lilith replied, trying to think of a gentle way of describing it but not managing to.

Pierce didn't respond, but her shock and rage at this was obvious.

Lilith thought about what had happened. She'd never seen any bandits attempt any kind of surgery on the people they captured. And even if they wanted to, what were the odds that any of them had enough medical knowledge to do the kind of thing that was done on the hostages in the cave? Dahl had rounded up criminals to work in mines on Pandora, but they only picked death row inmates; convicts in for life with no chance of parole. Sure, it was possible that an accomplished brain surgeon could have wound up in one of those categories, but the odds of this were just too astronomical for Lilith to accept. But really, what other explanation could there have been? The big man with the bullseye on his chest mentioned that he heard the surgeon scream, so Lilith had set him on fire during the firefight. It must have been that an extremely well-educated brain surgeon had found his way on Pandora and was deranged enough to do what he did.

Lilith reached into her pocket and pulled out the glowing sphere. The color of the metal and the glow made it obvious that the sphere was Eridian, but what was its purpose?

As the Runner drove through the tunnel, the sphere's glow illuminated the nearby walls. Pierce quickly glanced back, then kept her eyes on the road.

"What's that?" Pierce asked.

"I don't know. I found it in there." Lilith replied.

"Looks Eridian." Pierce said. "What's it do?"

Lilith paused. The second she picked it up, she saw the apparition. Could that vision be part of the sphere's purpose?

Lilith spun around quickly, trying to replicate what she did the last time she held the sphere and saw the apparition. However, nothing was there.

"Lilith?" Pierce asked.

"...I have no idea." Lilith finally said.

The Runner made it through the tunnel and back into the Eastern Rust Commons.

"Well, you're already going to give Tannis that key, right?" Pierce asked. "You could show her that thing, maybe she knows what it is."

"Yeah, I suppose I should." Lilith replied.

Lilith wondered what she would say to Patricia upon seeing her again. This was a woman who Lilith trusted to hold the key pieces for safekeeping, and who went and gave those keys to Commandant Steele at the first opportunity. It didn't make a difference that Steele then went and betrayed Patricia. Steele didn't make Patricia betray Lilith; she made that choice herself.

On the other hand, Lilith had went and played fetch with all those data recorders Patricia scattered about, and she listened to them. Patricia had pretty much lost it two years ago and it had only gotten worse since then. It could have been that Patricia only worked with Steele because she wanted someone to talk to. Sappy as hell, but it was possible and it was understandable.

What was confusing is that, in the span of a few days, Lilith had met three Patricias. There was the arrogant, pretentious bitch who sent out Echo requests to retrieve the recorders; there was the calm, rational, quiet woman who Lilith spoke to in person at Patricia's campsite; and there was the terrified, psychotic, schizophrenic nutjob who used the data recorder from Day 100 and on. Really, what unspeakable, impure things did Patricia do to that data recorder during the course of their 'relationship'? Patricia may have seemed perfectly fine the few times Lilith met her in person, but it was clear that she wasn't stable. Lilith wasn't sure if she could trust Patricia with the Vault key or with telling her what the sphere was, but her bigger concern was whether or not she could trust Patricia with anything at all.

Lilith also considered the possibility that Patricia had been working with Steele and the Atlas corporation as soon as Dahl pulled her funding, and that all those recordings were made recently, to bring Vault hunters to her and unwittingly help her and Steele find it. And after Steele got what she wanted, she betrayed Patricia. After all, it didn't make much sense that the Patricia on the recorders was so far off the deep end, while the Patricia Lilith met seemed perfectly fine.

But then, how much sense did that make? Steele and her soldiers were perfectly capable of retrieving the Vault keys from glorified thugs who somehow got their hands on them. They didn't need to trick a bounty hunter into-

"Lilith!" Pierce yelled, snapping Lilith from her thoughts.

"...yes?" Lilith asked. "I was paying attention."

"Uh huh." Pierce replied. "I said, we're here, get out."

Lilith looked around, quickly recognizing this place as the entrance to Patricia's digsite.

"You can walk to Scooter's car thing, right?" Pierce asked. "I'd stick around, but it's all I can do to keep from strangling her."

"The scars where your face should be crack?" Lilith asked.

Pierce's glare was answer enough. Lilith nodded and climbed out of the Runner.

"I'll try to get Scooter to fix the New-U Station you destroyed before you need it again." Pierce said. "And Lilith... thanks for your help."

"...it's what I do." Lilith replied.

Pierce gunned the Runner into reverse, spun around, and drove off into the night. Lilith watched her go, until her headlights disappeared around a mountainside. She had never been really thanked for what she did. Mostly it was just payment and a summary of how awesome what she just did was. Which reminded her – she had yet to be paid. And Pierce still had her sniper and Repeater!

Lilith entered the campsite, Pyre ready. There was always an infestation of Spiderants here. A few more steps, and as always, several of them burst out of the ground.

They began to charge, but suddenly stopped, staring at her.

"...finally, you're learning." Lilith said, walking past them.

They slowly turned, staring at her as she walked, but not daring to actually advance. And when she raised a weapon at them, they quickly backed away, hiding behind the nearest object.

Lilith smirked, and walked to Patricia's cabin.


	6. Answering Questions with Questions

Lilith stepped into Patricia's cabin. Patricia had already made her way back from the Crimson Lance prison, and was, as usual, buried in blueprints and maps. Lilith wasn't sure if she could trust Patricia, and being a bounty hunter, she could only think of one way to see if she could.

"You!" Patricia exclaimed. "The key! Do you have it?! I'll-"

Lilith reached over the table, grabbed Patricia by her collar, and yanked her over the table. Patricia struggled in surprise, kicking the table away and knocking the maps over. Lilith spun around, keeping hold of Patricia, and pinned her to the wall beside the door. Holding Patricia by the neck, she grabbed the Caustic submachine gun and pinned it under Patricia's chin.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Patricia demanded.

"You said it was pointless to talk about who betrayed who? Well, I disagree." Lilith said. "You gave the Vault key to Steele!"

"I told you, she forced me to!" Patricia protested. "I would have told you, but I figured you'd like killing Flynt either way!"

Lilith didn't pause, but she noticed that, although Patricia was reacting appropriately, she wasn't showing nearly as much shock or fear as any other person in her situation probably would. Perhaps she anticipated and planned for this altercation. Or was it that the data recordings were genuine, and she really was deadened to violence?

"You say you were forced into it, but you've got all this fancy equipment and all that money to spend on my key?" Lilith asked. "Not adding up, Patricia!"

"Most of this is leftover from Dahl!" Patricia protested, squirming. "And... and I..."

Patricia stuttered, clearly trying to think of some excuses. Lilith quickly pointed her weapon just to the side of Patricia's head and released one round. The bullet put a hole through the wall, and splashed a small amount of acid in all directions. A drop of it hit Patricia's temple, making her wince and let out a surprised cry. Lilith quickly moved the gun back under Patricia's chin.

"Alright, alright!" Patricia yelled. "I was working with her for a few weeks, now!"

"Why?" Lilith demanded.

"I thought I could use them to find the Vault myself! That's all it was!" Patricia replied. "They had manpower, resources!"

"So you thought you could use them, you used me, anyone else?" Lilith asked, not removing her weapon.

Patricia finally seemed to break. Her expression grew more desperate, and her voice started to quiver.

"I..." Was all Patricia could reply.

Lilith finally let Patricia go, and took a step back, giving her some room. Patricia rubbed her neck for a moment, where Lilith had pinned her.

"It wasn't just resources that I wanted from them..." Patricia slowly explained, keeping her eyes down. "They had..."

"Hm?" Lilith persisted.

"Food, alright?!" Patricia suddenly yelled, her face turning slightly red and her voice quivering. "Food, water, clothing, you know?! YOU try living out here for three damn years, eating bugs and only being able to drink or shower when it rains! You try... you try not having anyone to talk to for two years, until Atlas comes along, looking for the very same thing you're looking for, asking for your research..." Patricia's voice trailed off.

Lilith stared at her, then finally holstered her weapon. Patricia breathed a sigh of relief, and slowly slid down the wall, sitting on the floor. She wiped the tears from her eyes and glanced around the room, not wanting to look at Lilith.

As moving and understandable as all this was, Lilith wasn't totally convinced. Patricia's story made sense, and she had clearly indeed cracked after all these years. But the problem was that, if Lilith was right in guessing that the data recordings were all fake and done just weeks ago, it meant Patricia was a damn fine actress. And if she was that, this could all be an act as well. This whole thing supported the idea that Patricia was genuine in those recordings, but it equally supported the idea that she had been working with Steele for months to find the Vault, and that the recordings were faked to get talented Vault hunters to help. But of course, why would they need help?

Lilith sighed, and moved the table back to its original position.

"Look, I'm sorry. It's been a really long day." Lilith said, picking up the fallen maps. "If it makes you feel any better, I DID enjoy killing Flynt."

Patricia gave a small smile.

"See? Knew you would..." She said, slowly standing.

Lilith unstrapped the Vault key from her back and dropped it in the table with a thud. Immediately, Patricia's eyes lit up.

"...you're not supposed to act interested in front of the salesman. Makes it harder to haggle." Lilith said with a smirk.

Patricia looked like she was about to salivate.

"...500,000 credits!" Patricia exclaimed, emptying her pockets of cash and slapping it all on the table.

"...fine." Lilith said, amused.

Patricia grabbed the key off the table, cradling it like a baby.

"It'll be another 200 years before the Vault can be opened again, but until then, I can help keep this safe." Patricia said.

"Safest thing to do would be to take it off this planet." Lilith replied, counting the money.

"Maybe, but I can't leave yet." Patricia said. "From what I've learned, it seems there's more to the Eridians than weapons and spaceships. I'm staying and studying them."

This reminded Lilith of the glowing sphere.

"Speaking of which..." Lilith said, retrieving the sphere from her pocket. "Any idea what this is?"

Patricia stared at the sphere, her expression making it clear that she had never seen one before. She held her hand out, and after a pause, Lilith handed it over.

The second the sphere left Lilith's grasp, it stopped glowing as brightly as before, instead returning to the faint glow it produced when Lilith found it on the shelf.

"...it likes you." Patricia said, puzzled. She touched the sphere to Lilith's hand, and it immediately glowed brightly. Moving it away, the glow quickly faded.

"Why does it do that?" Lilith asked.

"I... could pull some guesses out of my ass, but they'd probably be wrong." Patricia said. "I've never seen anything like this before... it's definitely Eridian, just by the color of the metal and the glow... the glow matches the designs on the rocks out there, and...

Patricia's eyes fell on Lilith's body art.

"...may I just...?" Patricia began to ask, sliding over the table. She began closely examining Lilith's chest, feeling the difference between art and normal skin. Muttering quietly to herself, apparently deep in thought, Patricia began to pull down Lilith's top to see more of the artwork.

"...that's as far as anyone gets without buying me dinner." Lilith said, smacking Patricia's hand away.

"...where did you get those tattoos?" Patricia asked.

Lilith paused. In truth, she had no idea. Her memory only went back three months, and she had the designs for that whole period of time.

Lilith's pause apparently told Patricia all she needed to know.

"Commandant Steele didn't know, either." Patricia said. "She gave a story to people who asked, but she sucked at lying and the story was always just a little different each time. And... she always..."

Patricia rubbed her temples, muttering quietly to herself.

"...what are you saying?" Lilith asked."

"I... I don't know." Patricia replied. "You've got the same body art, this thing glows around you, she always seemed to know her way around Eridian technology..."

Lilith awkwardly glanced around the room, giving Patricia time to think.

"...where did you get this?" Patricia finally asked.

"From some bandits." Lilith replied. "It was just sitting on a shelf in their cave."

"Well, safe to assume that those Neanderthals didn't find it there." Patricia said, setting the sphere down. She ruffled through her maps, filling the table so she could see as many as possible. Various X's and circles marked the maps.

"...keep me in the loop, here." Lilith said.

"These are just various Eridian ruins and rock formations..." Patricia said, not looking up. "My team and I already went through all these, so I don't know where the Neanderthals could have found this thing..."

"...maybe they dug somewhere you didn't, or something?" Lilith suggested.

"We went through this whole region with Dahl satellites. If it's not on these maps, it's not Eridian." Patricia replied. "The only thing I can think of is... this site, right here." She pointed at an X. "It looked like the ruin was built into a mountain, but the passage had caved in. We tried for days to dig through, but then it all caved in and ten of us were buried alive."

"...the bandits I got this from had blasted a tunnel through a mountain." Lilith said.

Patricia quickly swept the other maps off the table, making room to properly unroll the one she was pointing at.

"This is it, then. This has to be it!" Patricia exclaimed, pointing at the X. "Let's go!"

"...all of a sudden, you want to come?" Lilith asked. "What about your usual strategy of hiding here with Chamomile?"

"Oh, there was never any Chamomile. I just imagined there being some here to slow down the rate at which I lost my sanity." Patricia replied matter-of-factly. "Besides, all the things I asked of you involved killing bandits. That's not my thing. Eridian archaeology is."

"There'll still be bandits there, if you're right." Lilith replied. "Can you use a gun? Do you even have one?"

Patricia reached behind her and pulled out a Repeater. Hyperion, judging by the color.

"You don't survive long here without one." Patricia replied.

This was even worse than Pierce wanting to come along. Sure, living alone on Pandora had apparently deadened her to violence, and having to hunt Skags for food likely made her a great shot and hunter, but one of two things was true: either she was a ticking time bomb of insanity, or she was in fact working Steele and Crimson Lance. Either way, not good.

"...you don't even know how to get here. This is way beyond the Salt Flats." Patricia said.

Lilith sighed. Glancing at the map, Patricia was right. She had no idea where that area of Pandora was.

"Let's just rest up for now and we can go in the morning." Patricia continued.

"...why not go now?" Lilith asked.

"Well, it's much more dangerous to go out at night, Skags and all. Plus, you look like hell. When was the last time you even sat down?" Patricia asked.

Lilith thought about it, and realized she hadn't slept since she arrived on Pandora. That was two days ago.

"...you just sleep on the floor here?" Lilith asked. "You don't even have a door."

"The Rakks keep this place safe." Patricia replied. "They attack anything that bothers them, so once you learn how not to, they become your best defense against bandits and skags."

Lilith didn't want to sleep here, of course, what with not knowing whose side Patricia was on and how unstable she was. But on the other hand, Patricia seemed to want her to go to this Eridian ruin. Not much point in killing her in her sleep if Patricia wanted her to go there.

Lilith slowly sat down, leaning against the wall. The regenerative properties of her shield acted as somewhat of a painkiller, keeping overworked muscles from hurting too much, but Lilith still realized just how much she had been through since clearing Fyrestone of bandits. With her Pyre in her hands, Lilith drifted off to a very light sleep.


	7. The Lilith Twins

Lilith stood in a large room, made of gray concrete all around, lightly glowing in Eridian designs. In two of the four corners of the room were massive statues of Guardians, at least 30 feet tall, almost teaching the ceiling. Halls leading out of this room were in the left and right walls, as well as behind Lilith. Ahead of her was a woman, back turned to Lilith, apparently working on something.

As Lilith looked around, it was clear that something was... wrong about this place. Various things in the room randomly faded in and out of sight, obscured by a black haze as they faded out. The fading seemed to happen less the closer objects were to the woman in front of Lilith. Nothing faded within a few feet of her, while what was beyond the hallways never came fully into view.

Lilith approached the woman and looked over her shoulder.

The woman was manipulating a complex hologram. She was standing in front of a stone pedestal, and on it rested various glowing, metal spheres of various sizes and glowing patterns. One of the spheres, about the size of a tennis ball, was projecting a a collection of symbols and shapes up into the air. This hologram was about a foot off the pedestal, and the collection of symbols was somewhat spherical, about a foot in diameter. As Lilith watched, the woman reached into the hologram and seemed to manipulate it, tapping some symbols to change them, somehow adding and removing symbols with rapid, precise movements of her fingers, and so on. This was some kind of Eridian computer.

Lilith moved to tap the woman on the shoulder, but stopped, not wanting to screw up whatever she was doing.

"...excuse me?" Lilith asked.

The woman didn't respond.

Lilith tapped the woman's shoulder, but she still didn't acknowledge Lilith.

"...hey, talking to you!" Lilith said, leaning over the table to look the woman in the eye. When she saw the woman's face, however, her eyes widened in surprise.

This woman looked exactly like her.

This Lilith lookalike continued working on the hologram system, not even glancing at Lilith.

"It's coming! It's coming!" Someone yelled.

The lookalike stopped what she was doing and looked down the right hallway. Immediately, the black haze in that hallway faded, the hallway becoming crystal clear. A man, dressed in a white lab coat, ran into the room.

"It's coming, we have to get out of here!" He yelled, grabbing the lookalike's arm and trying to drag her away.

"I'm not done here yet!" Lookalike protested, yanking her arm away. "This will only upload in close proximity to-"

"We don't have time for this!" The man interrupted. "If we don't leave right now, we'll be killed!"

"We're already dead." Lookalike replied, going back to manipulating the hologram. "But if the plan works, we'll live on in our children."

The man grabbed Lookalike by the shoulders, a crazed look in his eyes, and harshly shook her.

"It didn't have to turn out like this!" He yelled. "It's because of you idiots that we're thinking THIS" he motioned to the hologram, "is actually a victory for us! We should be focusing on killing it, not being martyrs!"

Lookalike shoved him away.

"You know as well as I do that this was a fight we could never win!" She yelled. "If anything, we should have started this project sooner! So many more of us could have been saved! Any men at all, for one!

The room shook violently, knocking Lookalike and the man off their feet, The spheres on the pedestal all fell to the ground, rolling in all directions.

"No!" Lookalike yelled, bolting for her hologram sphere.

The black haze suddenly enveloped everything in the room, save for the hologram sphere and a few feet of ground all around it. Lilith heard the man yell something, but it was distorted, as if she was underwater and hearing someone on the surface yell at her.

Lookalike grabbed the sphere and raced back to the pedestal, the haze subsiding to its previous state. The man was gone. Lookalike didn't seem to notice, quickly putting the sphere back on the pedestal.

The hologram was gone, but Lookalike performed a quick series of finger motions over it, and the hologram returned. Lookalike went right back to manipulating the hologram, her brow starting to sweat.

"What are you doing? What's going on?" Lilith asked, but of course, no response.

"Come on, come on..." Lookalike muttered to herself, her hands and fingers a blur in the hologram. "...done!"

Lookalike performed a quick finger motion, and the hologram subsided. She turned away from it, quickly scanned the fallen spheres, and grabbed one about the size of a golf ball.

The room shook violently, large cracks forming in the ceiling. Lookalike glanced at them, then took off down the left hallway. The black haze vanished down that hallway, but quickly started to obscure the room. Lilith could see herself perfectly, but couldn't see anything in the room anymore. Realizing she had to follow Lookalike to see anything, Lilith ran off after her.

The hallway violently shook, knocking Lookalike against the wall. She took a hit to the head, stalling her and allowing Lilith to catch up. Lookalike now had a severe bruise on her forehead. She took a moment to shake it off, then continued running.

The hallway continued going straight, but another hallway merged into this one from the left. As Lookalike ran past this fork, another woman joined her from it. The two continued running down the hallway.

"Did you get one?" The woman asked.

"Yeah, yes, got it!" Lookalike replied.

"It's here!" The woman yelled, her eyes tearing up.

"I know!" Lookalike replied, a crazed look appearing on her face. With a laugh, she said "See you on the other side!"

"Goodbye, my friend!" The woman replied.

The hallway opened into the outside world. It was a bright, sunny day, and the landscape was lush green grass. As the three of them ran out into the world, Lilith heard a deafening roar from behind and above her. She spun around to see what it was, but the black haze totally obscured it.

Lilith continued running after the woman and Lookalike. Ahead of them, soldiers were running towards them, Eridian weapons raised to the sky behind Lilith. With sheer terror in their eyes, they opened fire, unleashing a barrage of glowing white projectiles and what looked like bolts of lightning. Lilith glanced back, but again, the haze obscured everything.

Suddenly, a massive purple tentacle slammed down on the soldiers to the right of Lilith, crushing them in a splatter of blood and bone. Lookalike and the woman were knocked off their feet by this, the woman's right side now coated in blood. The woman screamed in surprise, fully crying now.

"I promise it'll work!" Lookalike yelled at her, yelling over the soldier's screams and the noise of the weapons.

Lilith had time to see a tentacle begin to slam down on herself, Lookalike, and the woman, and everything went black.

* * *

Lilith woke up with a scream, dripping on cold sweat. In a panic, she looked around, quickly realizing she was still in Patricia's office. It was all a dream.

Lilith was still sitting against the wall. Breathing hard, she sighed and leaned her head back against the wall, and wiped the sweat from her face.

Patricia ran in from outside, some cloth in her hand.

"Relax, I have it right here!" Patricia exclaimed, tossing the cloth onto Lilith's lap. "It's raining, so I figured you'd like it if I washed the blood off it!"

Lilith examined the cloth, and realized it was her shirt. Patricia had taken her jacket and shirt off in her sleep to wash them.

As disturbing as that was, Lilith just smiled and quietly laughed, relieved that she was still alive.

"...yeah, laughing at nothing is one of the first signs of insanity." Patricia said, confused. "Anyway, it's morning, so we can go after I collect enough rainwater."

Patricia walked back out. Lilith put her shirt back on, thinking about her dream. Despite so much of it being obscured by black haze for some reason, it was the most vivid and detailed dream Lilith had ever had. Lilith put her jacket back on, and pushed herself to her feet. She reached into her pocket and retrieved the glowing sphere. Looking it over, she realized it was identical to the one Lookalike grabbed off the floor.

Lilith glanced out the door. Patricia was out there, positioning buckets on the ground to collect the rain.

Suddenly, Lilith saw the glowing apparition from the bandit cave. It was standing on the other end of the canyon, staring at her. And then, as soon as Lilith could register what she was looking at, it was gone.

Lilith stared at where the apparition stood, seeing only dirt and the rock face of the cliff. She still hadn't been able to look at it long enough to notice any details, but this time, she could tell that this apparition was female.

"...what the hell is going on?" Lilith quietly asked herself.


	8. Valley of Death

After Patricia had collected her rainwater, she and Lilith made their way to the nearby Catch-A-Ride station. With Patricia driving and Lilith in the rocket turret, they now made their way through the Salt Flats. The colossal Thor machine was empty now, with the surrounding area littered with blood, bodies, and Runner scrap. Lilith would have liked to stop and clear out the new collection of thugs that had no doubt moved in already, but there was time for that another day.

"What the hell is that thing, anyway?" Lilith asked.

"It's a mining machine." Patricia replied. "The shovels on that blade scoop earth up onto a conveyor belt and down inside."

This ride was going to take a while, and with nothing to shoot to lass the time, Lilith leaned back in her seat and idly checked her weapons, removing the clips to clean the internal components and so forth. Anything to take her mind off the dream she just had.

Lilith had never been a proponent of dreams meaning anything. To Lilith, people tended to dream about whatever was on their mind that night, and that's as deep as it went. This dream, however, was disturbingly vivid and detailed. She gained insights into Eridian technology that she had never imagined before, pictured Eridian symbols that she would never have been able to write from memory while awake, and saw Eridian weapons that she had never seen before. It was possible that her imagination was simply running wild, but why, then, did she see humans in place of Eridians? She had seen The Destroyer attacking a fully functioning Eridian structure, so surely she was imagining the past, right? Unless... this was a vision of the future. That would explain the presence of humans, and that would explain why Lilith saw herself there. But that didn't make sense – "We'll live on in our children"? What the hell did that mean? Lilith didn't speak like that, and even if she did, she had no idea what that statement could possibly mean.

And besides, if it was a vision of the future, Lilith had seen herself die. That was never going to happen. Not to that obese tentacle blob. Lilith would never be killed by something so fat it got stuck in an interdimensional portal. Plus, it was just a dream. Dreams didn't reveal the past, nor the future. Right? Right.

"Just a couple more minutes." Patricia said, snapping Lilith out of her thoughts.

They were out of the Salt Flats, and in a landscape that, while still arid and harsh, had much more plantlife than anywhere Lilith had seen before. There were more of those giant sunflower-looking plants that seemed to thrive off oil, but there were also large patches of some kind of yellow grass, slimy green algae on most of the rocks, and tangles of thick, brown vines that grew out of the ground for a few feet at a time, only to burrow right back. Lilith also noticed the temperature of this area. Far more temperate.

"Why didn't anyone build a settlement here?" Lilith asked.

"Damn near everything growing here is poisonous, that's why." Patricia replied. "See those vines? Every night, they secret some kind of toxic gas. It kills anything that inhales it, and after a few days, the animal basically liquefies. The goo seeps into the earth and that's how the vines sustain themselves."

Lilith buried her face in her palm, shaking her head. Two minutes of homework would have told Dahl to stay the hell away from this planet, or at least stop trying to terraform it. Instead, they decided that a planet where sunflowers live off gasoline and plants melt people was a great place to move the family to. Everything on this planet lived off death. Idiots.

Patricia drove the Runner near the edge of a small cliff, and slowly pulled to a stop.

"We're here." She said, climbing out.

Lilith climbed out of the turret and walked to the edge of the cliff. It was maybe a 15 foot drop, sloping slightly, so she figured she could slide down it with little trouble. Lilith looked out, and gasped.

There was an Eridian structure built into a mountainside about fifty yards away. Perfectly smooth Eridian stone stretched a good 50 feet high before it ended and bare mountain took over, stretching another 100 or so up. The landscape in front of it, though, bore a striking resemblance to the landscape outside the Eridian building Lilith saw in her dream.

"...damn it, you were right." Patricia said, looking out at the structure.

Lilith looked, and realized that there were several bandits outside the structure. They were idly talking to each other, walking in and out of the structure, and checking on three shipping containers that were set up, in a row, beside the entrance to the structure. Large rocks littered the area, their pattern making it clear that these rocks were blasted out of the entrance to the structure.

Lilith glanced at Patricia. She knew there was no way in hell Patricia was agreeing to stay outside while she went in, but just like with Governor Pierce, she wasn't sure if Patricia could hold her own in any kind of gunfight.

"How are we gonna do this?" Patricia asked.

Lilith thought it over, and unslung her Eridian Lightning. Patricia's eyes lit up the moment she laid eyes on it.

"I'll take them up close. You stay up here and give me covering fire." Lilith replied, handing the Lightning to Patricia.

Patricia cradled it like a newborn for a second, running her hands along its surface. "This'll teach them to not want to be my friends." She said with a smirk.

Patricia had issues.

"...yeah. Don't open fire until they're distracted by me." Lilith instructed.

Patricia nodded slightly, and laid down on her stomach, aiming the Lightning down at the bandits.

Lilith backed away from Patricia, focused, and burst into her phasewalking dimension. She lept over the cliff, landing without any trouble, and ran for the closest group of bandits. Four of them, armed with submachine guns and combat rifles, in conversation. Lilith ran between the four of them, and reentered reality in a burst of fire. The four of them were knocked away, already engulfed in flame. Only one of them managed to stay alive long enough to scream for half a second.

The rest of the bandits jumped in surprise, and Lilith already had her Pyre up and ready. She put several flaming bullets in two of their heads before they managed to raise their weapons. Realizing the rest were ready to return fire, Lilith emptied the rest of her clip in one quick wave all around her, making the bandits duck for cover. The Pyre's rounds occasionally hit the dirt, erupting in a small explosion of fire.

Lilith quickly counted five bandits left. With no time to reload, Lilith raised her Caustic submachine gun and opened fire on the two most ready to shoot her. The three of them each strafed to their sides, trying to evade each other, with their shields taking the shots that landed. Suddenly a lightning bolt struck one of them from the cliff, penetrating his shield with ease and blasting his head apart. Patricia.

Lilith laughed as three of the bandits paused in surprise. The fourth was unphased, and raised his combat rifle, but Lilith managed to aim quicker and opened fire. The man had no shield, and screamed as the acid from the rounds ripping into his chest began dissolving him from within.

One of the three remaining bandits opened fire, the combat rifle rounds quickly eating away at Lilith's shield. Almost immediately, though, another lightning bolt struck from the cliff, ripping through the bandit's shield and blasting his right arm off at the elbow. He screamed and fell to the ground, holding his stump of an arm. Ignoring him, Lilith opened fire on the second bandit as he raised his own submachine gun. The rounds broke through his shield, breaking his gun and splashing his hands with acid. He screamed and stumbled back, and was suddenly struck by a bolt of lightning to the chest. He hit the ground hard, a cauterized crater in his chest.

The final bandit was nowhere to be found. Lilith looked around, and spotted him at the three shipping containers. He had apparently already punched in a code into the pads on the first two containers, and had just finished punching something into the third. As soon as he was finished, a lightning bolt hit his head, blasting it apart. The headless bandit stood there for a second before falling flat on his back.

"...ha, sorry I doubted you." Lilith said into the echo device, smirking.

"They wouldn't be my friends." Patricia replied.

Suddenly, the doors on the containers began to open one by one. Lilith sighed, remembering the container outside New Haven with the insane midget inside. She quickly reloaded both submachine guns, and waited.

Inside all three containers were bloodied men and women, twitching slightly as they stood, staring at Lilith. They wore tattered clothing, with some of their limbs clearly broken, and blood splattered across their bodies. As Lilith looked, she recognized the stitching patterns on their foreheads and hairlines. These were more experiments from the cave.

Several of them produced inhuman screams of fury, and charged at Lilith.

"...kill them." Lilith told Patricia, and opened fire with her Pyre.

The experiments had no shields, and were quickly dropped. They screamed, more in rage than pain, as the rounds ripped chunks from them and set them ablaze. Some continued their charge even after that, and needed more shots to the head and chest to drop for good. Even so, it only took a single clip, and a few bolts from Patricia, to drop them all.

"Alright, come down." Lilith said, turning to watch Patricia.

Patricia looked down at the cliff, looking for an area less steep than the rest. She glanced at Lilith, and suddenly pointed in surprise.

"Look out!" She yelled.

Lilith spun around, expecting more bandits.

Some of the female experiments had begun to stir. Two had already pushed themselves to their hands and knees, while three more were just showing signs of life. As they slowly got to their feet, they locked their eyes on Lilith, faces full of hatred. Some of their bullet wounds were still there, but others had begun to regenerate or were gone entirely. One woman's clothing was still on fire, but her flesh underneath seemed to flicker in response to it, almost as if it was phasing out...

"...what the hell did they do to you?" Lilith asked, backing away.

Suddenly, all five of them erupted in phase blasts, the combined force knocking Lilith back a good 15 feet and slamming her against the cliff wall. The force of it depleted her shield, and she could feel a broken left shoulder.

Her eyes watering and vision blurred from the pain, Lilith groped around for her Pyre, but it was nowhere to be found. She wiped her eyes, and saw the experiments advancing. The blast had apparently killed one of them, as there were only four left, with burning chunks of flesh where the fifth once stood. Lilith quickly glanced around, and spotted her Pyre far off to the left.

Phasewalking would fix Lilith's broken bones, so she laid there, waiting for the experiments to come. They approached, eyed fixed on Lilith, hands ready to grab. The nearest one let out a feral scream, and dove for Lilith. Lilith erupted in a wave of fire, entering the phasewalking dimension. The blast set the experiments ablaze, but more importantly, there was a brief flash of light around each of them, as if a shield had depleted.

Lilith raced to her fallen Pyre and reentered reality. Her shoulder fixed, Lilith grabbed her weapon and opened fire on the experiments. This time, they were properly ripped apart by the incendiary rounds, and stayed down.

Lilith stared at their burning bodies, breathing hard. Once she was sure they were dead, she slowly reloaded her weapons.

Patricia was sitting on the edge of the cliff, trying to carefully inch her way down. The bit of dirt she was sitting on eventually gave way, and she fell, heels gouging trenches in the steep slope as she tried to slow her fall. Her feet caught harder ground, and she fell flat on her stomach, chunks of dirt falling on her.

"Oh damn it, good job, Patricia, real ladylike." Patricia said, pushing herself to her feet. She glanced at the burning bodies. "What was with them?"

"...I don't know." Lilith replied, surprised at Patricia's willingness to blow off what just happened.

"Huh." Patricia said, and glanced at the entrance to the Eridian structure. "So, shall we?"

"...okay." Lilith replied.

Patricia smiled, and calmly walked towards the entrance. Lilith watched her go, unsure of what to make of Patricia's demeanor. Patricia did say she was deadened to violence, but even so, this was disturbing.

Lilith wiped the sweat from her forehead and followed.


	9. Hypercube

Lilith and Patricia entered the structure. Like Patricia said, the ceiling had caved in. A massive cavern had been cleared where the ceiling should have been, and chunks of rock still littered the floor. Dried blood splatter stained the floor and some of the lower walls, as if people were crushed when the ceiling caved in.

"Here's where it happened." Patricia said, without a hint of emotion. "Shall we continue?"

"...I'll lead the way." Lilith replied.

The halls were silent, save for an occasional echo of footsteps, or some other source of noise. The hallway itself was a flat grey, with occasional Eridian designs and symbols glowing briefly. It was hard to tell, since everything was so monochrome and plain, but this place looked eerily similar to the hallways in Lilith's dream. As they walked down the hall, they came to the same hallway that branched off to the left, where the second woman ran from. Lilith glanced down it, seeing more nondescript hallway, and kept going straight. She had to see if this hallway lead to the same large room.

"These symbols... can we stop?" Patricia asked.

"In a minute, in a minute..." Lilith replied distantly.

After a few moments of walking, the hallway opened into a large chamber. The stone pedestal was right there in the middle of the room, and the two Guardian statues were in two of the corners. Glowing Eridian symbols and designs glowed along all the walls. This room was exactly as Lilith had dreamed. The only things missing were the metallic spheres. The pedestal and the floor were both empty.

"Get them off me!" Patricia suddenly screamed.

Lilith spun around to face her, Pyre ready. Patricia had dropped her weapon and was frantically swatting at herself, screaming in fear.

"...there's nothing there!" Lilith yelled, grabbing Patricia.

Patricia shoved Lilith away, still frantically wiping her arms and smacking her head and body randomly. She backed up, tripped, and fell against the wall. She continued to swat herself repeatedly, and suddenly dove for the fallen Lightning. She grabbed it, and began to turn it on herself.

"No!" Lilith yelled, and dove onto Patricia. She grabbed the Lightning just as Patricia pulled the trigger, the bolt hitting the wall just above Patricia's shoulder.

Lilith yanked the weapon away and quickly backed up.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Lilith demanded.

Suddenly, Lilith heard a stampede of footsteps behind her. She spun around, and saw a mob of bandits run in from the hallway that the man in the lab coat entered from in her dream. All armed with makeshift cleavers, they charged.

Lilith raised her Pyre and opened fire. All the bullets hit their mark, but seemed to pass right through the bandits, hitting the wall behind them. They continued their charge, unphased.

Patricia suddenly tackled Lilith from behind, knocking her onto her stomach.

"I'll show you to punch my dog!" Patricia screamed, yanking Lilith's head up by her hair. She slammed Lilith's head against the floor in one smooth motion. After another slam, Lilith managed to shove Patricia off and scramble away.

The bandits were gone, and somehow, water had begun to fill the room. The whole structure shook, knocking Patricia off her feet, and in response, the two hallways out of the room caved in. The water level was quickly rising.

Lilith then noticed that the guardians in the corners were no longer looking straight ahead, but were staring at her. After a pause, they yanked their feet out of their foundations, and turned their bodies to face her.

Patricia screamed, scrambling away from something in front of her that Lilith couldn't see. She was backing up straight for one of the guardians. In response, the guardian raised a foot, preparing to stomp on her.

"Look out!" Lilith screamed, and opened fire on the guardian. The bullets passed straight through it.

Suddenly, everything returned to normal. The hallways had not caved in, there was no water, no bandits, and the guardians had not moved. Lilith looked around in a panic, and Patricia did the same. The only sign that anything that happened was the bullet holes in the walls that Lilith caused.

Patricia frantically examined herself, breathing heavily. After a moment of that, she looked at Lilith.

"Where did they go?!" She asked.

"Where did what go?" Lilith asked.

"The spiderants!" Patricia replied, as if it was obvious.

"There were never any spiderants! Why the hell did you attack me?" Lilith demanded.

"What? I didn't! Flynt was here! Nice job killing him!" Patricia replied.

What had happened was obvious, then. It was all an illusion.

Lilith looked around, and noticed that the symbols and designs near her collateral damage had stopped glowing. Could that have something to do with it?

"...is there any point to those glowing designs?" Lilith asked.

Patricia glanced at them. "Maybe. I don't even know what causes them, so I couldn't tell you." She replied. "That was definitely not an automated defense, though. Someone realized we were here and made that happen, so let's keep moving."

Patricia extended her hand, waiting for Lilith to return the Lightning. After a pause, she did. Patricia's lack of concern about what just happened was unsettling. Was she just so far gone mentally that she didn't care, or had she purposely lead Lilith here?

Patricia began to walk down the opposite hallway, and Lilith had to jog to catch up.

This hallway was identical to the other one. The Eridians apparently had no interest in home decor. Also odd was the absence of any doors on either side. The only explanation Lilith could think of was that, given the size of the previous room, the Eridians preferred to have a few massive rooms, rather than dozens of smaller ones.

The hallway turned to the right, and up ahead, Lilith could see the hallway come to an end, with paths leading to the left and right.

Suddenly, footsteps, and crazed laughter.

"...is it happening again?" Patricia asked.

"Only one way to find out." Lilith replied, raising her Pyre.

A single bandit lead the charge from the path to the right, shotgun in hand. Lilith quickly aimed and fired a short burst at his head. The bullets hit their mark, and the bandit immediately fell into a heap, blood and brain matter splattering against the wall behind him.

"Real." Lilith replied with a smirk. "Get behind me, I've got the shield."

The bandits let out screams of rage, and all leapt out from around the corner. Four of them took point at the end of the hall, while three more charged, armed with cleavers. The four at the back opened fire, accidentally killing one of the cleaver bandits. The other two had no shields, and each fell with a quick burst of rounds to the heads.

Patricia, crouching behind Lilith, opened fire. The lightning bolt took one of the bandits to the chest, killing his shield. One bandit beside him scrambled away in surprise, while the other two dove behind either corner.

"Get behind the corner!" Lilith yelled, and rushed the bandits.

The one Patricia shot took only three shots to put down. The second one opened fire with a combat rifle, the rounds ripping into Lilith's shield. Not slowing, Lilith returned fire. Her rounds set the bandit ablaze, but his shield held. Still, he screamed in panic, and ran down the hallway to the right. His screams of terror quickly became those of pain, and they soon died down.

"You monster!" The bandit who dove down the left hallway yelled, and threw a grenade out into the hall.

Lilith stopped dead, but underestimated how far the grenade would bounce. It bounced towards her, so she instead tried to run past it. It exploded, knocking her onto her stomach and almost depleting her shield. The floor and walls cracked and chipped, but didn't take any real damage.

The two remaining bandits jumped out onto the hallway, both with matadors, and opened fire. The combined assault depleted Lilith's shield, and the remaining pellets hit her directly. She screamed, holding her head in pure reflex. She just barely heard the chambers in the matadors load the next round. The bandits pulled the triggers, the firing pins struck, and as the pellets left the barrels, Lilith entered the Phasewalking realm in a wave of fire.

The bandits were too far away to be set ablaze, but the force knocked them both against the wall. Lilith got to her feet, her wounds already healed, and considered what to do.

"Get the other one!" One bandit yelled.

They both ran down the hall, opening fire on Patricia. Patricia returned fire, her shot missing.

Lilith calmly grabbed one of the bandits. He couldn't see her, and let out a surprised yelp. The other bandit didn't notice. Lilith smirked, hugged her bandit, and reentered reality. The bandit took the full force of the flames, and basically turned to ash, his charred flesh and bones crumbling out of Lilith's arms.

The other bandit stopped dead and spun around in surprise. He saw Lilith, raised his matador, and took a lightning bolt to the back from Patricia. He screamed, dropped his matador, and stumbled towards Lilith. Lilith grabbed his head and smoothly snapped his neck. She let go, and he stood there for a second before falling to his knees, and then on his back.

"...bitch!" Patricia protested, hands on her hips.

"Oh, come on, I knew you could handle yourself." Lilith replied.

Patricia opened her mouth to speak, but suddenly, the Eridian symbols on the walls began to glow brighter. They quickly became almost blinding, like burning magnesium. After a second, the air seemed to radiate, like heatwaves above a hot road.

Lilith's shield began to deplete. Patricia, who had no shield, winced in pain.

"What the hell-" She began in panic, but her words quickly became a scream. Her clothing had begun to smoke.

Lilith grabbed her and ran her back the way she came, around the corner. This hallway was not glowing. As soon as they entered, Patricia stopped screaming. She breathed hard, and touched her face with a trembling hand.

"...what was it, heat?" Lilith asked awkwardly.

Patricia shook her head. "Some kind of energy field." She said, wiping the sweat from her forehead.

The glow was not dying down, but it did not continue down this hallway.

Lilith paused, then removed her shielding device. She handed it to Patricia.

"I'm sure I can just phase through it. Use that to follow me." She said.

Patricia smiled and put it on, and waited for it to charge.

Lilith turned back to the glowing hallway. She slowly reached a hand into the glow, and immediately felt the sensation of being shot by a Sera Guardian's weapon. She quickly yanked her hand back, and looked it over. There was no visible damage, but she knew she couldn't last long in that hallway.

"Ready." Patricia said.

"Go, I'll follow." Lilith replied.

Patricia nodded, and ran into the hallway. Her shield glowed, but it seemed to hold. Patricia continued running down the hall. Lilith entered the Phasewalking realm, and followed. As expected, the energy field did nothing to her.

Lilith easily ran past Patricia, and got to the end of the hall. The glowing field stopped just before this hallway split into the two paths to the left and right. Lilith reentered reality, and suddenly took a combat rifle round to the left shoulder, from the right. She spun around from the impact, and instinctively dove to the ground. She spun around onto her back to face her attacker.

The hallway to the right stretched forward only a few dozen yards. At the end of this hallway stood a Crimson Lance soldier, combat rifle in hand.

"Contact!" He yelled, and raised his rifle.

Lilith raised her Pyre with one arm. The soldier opened fire just as Patricia stepped out from the glowing hall. She took the burst of rounds. She screamed in surprise, and quickly opened fire.

The lightning bolt took the soldier square in the chest. It wasn't clear if he was hurt, but it made him pause. Lilith scrambled to the side, getting Patricia out of her line of fire, and opened fire on the soldier. The rounds pierced his armor, and after a second, the man inside caught fire. He screamed, trying in vain to pat himself out. Patricia fired a second bolt, this one knocking the soldier on his back. He rolled around in pain, still on fire, but finally stopped.

Patricia paused, but suddenly ran down the hall towards the soldier. Lilith groaned and dragged herself to her feet. Her shield had the healing effect she needed, but Patricia took off before she could ask for it back.

Lilith glanced behind her, then followed Patricia.

The hallway opened into a smaller room, killing Lilith's Eridian architecture theory. It was maybe 10 by 10 feet. In the center of the room was a stone pedestal. On it rested a metal sphere, the size of a baseball, projecting a hologram of Eridian symbols into the air exactly as Lilith had dreamt.

The walls of the room were designed like a staircase, with three steps. The first step was about four feet tall, with about half a foot of horizontal surface. The second and third steps were each a foot high, with their own half-foot surfaces. The rest of the wall above the third step was normal. These steps acted as shelves, and were full of metallic spheres of varying sizes and glows.

Patricia was admiring all of them, mouth gaping in surprise.

"...the shield?" Lilith asked.

Patricia idly took it off and tossed it to Lilith, not bothering to look at her. As Lilith put it on, Patricia walked to the pedestal.h

"...it... it's telling me about the energy field out in the hall, but..." Patricia slowly said.

Lilith walked up to the pedestal. After a pause, she reached into the field, trying to keep her fingers as she remembered them in her dream. The symbols smoothly moved away from her hand in response.

"...how did you do that?" Patricia asked in surprise.

"I... don't know." Lilith replied. "But..."

She changed her hand position, and pointed to a symbol. It seemed to glow a little brighter. Patricia stared at the symbols in wonder, and stroked her chin in thought.

"...I see..." She said, gently pulling Lilith's hand out of the hologram. She reached in herself, and carefully experimented with other hand positions.

"...yeah, it's some kind of computer, I think." Lilith said.

Patricia just nodded, reaching her other hand into the hologram. She looked confused, but was clearly getting the hang of it.

"I think... the field is... gone?" Patricia asked, with one final poke of one of the symbols.

Lilith glanced outside, and the glow from the hallway had indeed died down.

"...it looks like this thing controls this place's version of a security system." Patricia said. "See this? ...of course you don't, you can't read this. But this, here, looks like a reference to that illusion defense system we saw... it probes the mind for fears and relevant perceived threats, and... let me see... it manipulates the... olfactory and optic nerves, and the inferior colliculus, to make them appear to that person." She glanced at Lilith. "The brain, Lilith, it manipulates the brain."

"I got that." Lilith said. "But... this thing is an Eridian thing, right? How can it be so specialized to mess with human brains?"

Patricia paused, considering the question, but then shrugged and continued manipulating the hologram.

Lilith glanced back out into the hall. All this was interesting, and how the bandits had managed to get their experiments to phasewalk was probably in that computer ball, but a quicker way to find out would be to just ask one of the smart bandits. Plus, the Crimson Lance was apparently running the show here. Lilith couldn't let those maniacs get away with all the knowledge that was likely in this structure.

"If I leave you here, could you take care of yourself?" Lilith asked.

"No problem." Patricia replied, eyes fixed on the hologram. "I'm getting a hang of security here, so... yep, I can glow off this whole section once you leave. None of those neanderthals will be able to get me."

"Alright. I'll go clean house." Lilith said, reloading her Pyre.

"Sounds good. I'll use the security systems to help you as you go." Patricia replied.

Lilith nodded and walked out of the room. She grabbed one of the fallen Matadors and slung it over her shoulder. She glanced back, then continued down the left hallway.


	10. Some Small Questions Answered

Lilith walked down the hallways, Pyre in hand.

"Okay, two things." Patricia said on the ECHO, "You're entering the... science wing, I guess would be what we'd call it. There's some kind of chemistry lab to your left, and a testing chamber straight ahead."

"And it tests?" Lilith asked.

"It doesn't say. I guess they figured anyone who would be reading this would know what's being tested." Patricia replied.

Lilith groaned and crept up to the left room entrance. Apparently, the Eridians had an open door policy in this place, as so far she had yet to see a closing door. She peeked inside.

The room was large. Four pedestals, in a row, stretched across the room with only a few feet of clearance along each wall. They were full of more hologram balls, machines connected at varying distances by tubes of multicolored and glowing liquids, shimmering holograms depicting humans and various animals, and various other things. The pedestals themselves were covered in glowing symbols and designs.

There were also five Lance soldiers and five bandits in the room, messing with everything. A soldier and a bandit noticed her.

"Kill her, probe her body!" The bandit yelled with a maniacal laugh.

Lilith smirked and put seven bullets in his head with one trigger squeeze. The soldier returned fire, and Lilith ducked behind the door. She unslung her matador in her left hand.

"Don't shoot that stuff!" Patricia yelled.

"They're kinda shooting at me!" Lilith protested. One of the bandits ran out the door, and Lilith calmly pumped his stomach with a matador shell. That was the end of him.

"Lure them into the hall and let me glow off that hall!" Patricia said.

Lilith quickly leaned into the doorway and put down two more bandits, though their returning fire took a toll on her shield.

"The Lance guys probably have shields, Patricia!" Lilith yelled, reloading.

Lilith reached to her side and grabbed a proteon grenade. She gave it a quick wave past the modifying field of her grenade mod, turning it into a Transfusion grenade. She looked into the room, gave a quick burst of fire, and threw the grenade in.

The soldiers panicked, realizing they couldn't get away. The burst of energy passed through their armor and shields with no resistance. As they screamed, Lilith raised her Caustic SMG and opened fire. As usual, their armor melted like butter. Very quickly, each of the soldiers screamed as the rounds melted them alive. One by one, they collapsed, knocking devices off the pedestals as the fell.

"Did they break anything?!" Patricia frantically asked.

"...if I said no, would you believe me?" Lilith asked.

Patricia groaned.

Lilith stepped into the room and looked everything over.

The hologram balls were exactly the same as the one Patricia was working on, and the one Lilith saw in her dream. They were all projecting their own collections of different symbols. Lilith brushed a hand through one, amusing herself with the symbols hastily dodging her hand, then moved on.

She made her way to a large device. It had two main parts – a bottom part, rectangular, about a foot tall and one by three wide and long, and a cylindrical part that stretched up from the center of the rectangle, about three feet tall and a foot in diameter. All around the top rim of this cylinder, transparent tubes stretched out around the room, connecting to smaller devices on this and the other pedestals. Some were empty, some had liquid inside of varying colors, and some glowed with energy.

Lilith followed a glowing tube to its connecting device. It looked like some kind of testing chamber for lab rats, or whatever Pandora's equivalent was. It was a small box, with a shielded viewing window to the bare chamber inside.

"...Patricia, you can see me, right?" Lilith asked.

"Eyes and ears all around you." Patricia replied.

"Well then, what the hell am I looking at?" Lilith asked.

A pause.

"It's hard to find descriptions on this thing." Patricia finally said. "I don't think the Eridians shared our Egyptians' philosophy of explaining everything they could think of for us. All I can find is its name... translated, I guess, it'd be 'Panacea Viability Test'."

"Meaning?" Lilith asked.

"Apparently, all you do is... stick a finger in and see if it works." Patricia asked.

Lilith looked at the device. Like hell she was sticking her hand in that thing, not knowing what it did. She looked around for a suitable replacement, and soon her eyes fell on one of the dead bandits. She smirked, walked over, and dragged him to the device. She hoisted him up, and unceremoniously jammed his hand through the device's force field.

Nothing happened.

"...huh. Damn thing's broken." Lilith said, dropping the bandit. She looked at her own hand, shrugged, and stuck it in the device.

Her hand appeared to phasewalk.

Lilith gasped and yanked her hand out of the device. As quickly as her hand phasewalked, it returned to normal.

"Says here that 'the subject is suitable.'" Patricia said. "What did it do? I didn't catch that."

"It... made my hand do my phasewalk thing." Lilith replied.

Suddenly, Lilith heard voices out in the hall. Lance soldiers, by the sound of it.

"How'd they manage to fix the gene problem if the Eridians couldn't?" One asked.

"They're just that damn good." Another replied.

Patricia seemed to already know whoever was there was there.

"I'll glow them off." Patricia said.

"Wait, wait, I want to hear this." Lilith whispered.

"So, how long until making more of those mouthfoaming freaks translates into turning us into supermen?" One asked.

"I dunno, weeks, months. We're on track, that's what matters." One replied. "I'm just worried about side effects. Seems like the better it turns out, the more weird Eridian designs you get on your body."

"So what, you're telling me that wouldn't be a good conversation starter?" A new one asked. "It'd be all 'good god, how low down your pants does that tat go?' 'Come here and find out, sweet cheeks, yeeaah.'"

"I'd love to live in your fantasy world where that scheme would work." One said with a laugh. "Well... yep, it's time. Let's get more hostages to that operating room."

That was all Lilith needed to hear. She reloaded her weapons and jogged out of the room. The voices had come from further down the hall, so she followed it. A few dozen feet, and the hallway opened up into the testing chamber.

It was a circular room, all made of some kind of shining metal. The ceiling was domed, a good 20 feet up at its highest point. There were several crates and barrels stacked up, Lance emblems stamped on them. As well, floating around the room were more computer spheres. These ones were bigger, though. They weren't projecting any holograms, and they all had a small groove cut out along their equators.

Five Lance Defenders were in this room. They had begun to walk out, but heard Lilith run in and turned around. Without a pause, Lilith opened fire at one's unprotected back. The caustic rounds ripped into his armor, dropping him in just a few seconds. The others had turned around, raised their shields, and returned fire. Lilith dove behind a stack of crates for cover.

"The rest of you, get in here!" One yelled. Heavy footsteps quickly followed, as more Lance ran into the chamber.

Lilith glanced around the corner and opened fire. As she did so, she noticed Engineers run into the chamber from the far hallway. Her rounds began melting the Defender's shield, but not fast enough. He quickly returned fire, making Lilith duck behind the crates again.

Then, one of the Engineers threw a turret around the corner of the crates, landing to Lilith's side. The turret quickly swivelled to face her... but it didn't open fire.

"Let's have some fun!" One of the Lance yelled. "Turn the chamber on, let's 'test' her!"

"Oh, hell." Lilith groaned.

The computer balls overhead suddenly began to move. They quickly converged on Lilith and began glowing with energy. They all unleashed a massive pulse of energy at her. Lilith dove out of the way, the pulses hitting the floor and the bottom layer of crates. The crates exploded, sending chunks of wood and metal flying. The stack of crates lost its balance, and collapsed onto Lilith.

The Lance soldiers laughed as the balls converged for a second blast. They began to glow, and Lilith prepared to phasewalk. But then, the balls stopped glowing.

"...what the hell?" A Defender asked.

The balls suddenly flew up high, circling the room. They each began to glow with energy.

"What are you doing?" A Defender asked, likely into his radio.

"I'LL TEACH YOU TO NOT BE MY FRIENDS!" Patricia suddenly screamed, so loud Lilith had to hold her Echo away from her ear for a moment.

Each ball unleashed a huge wave of energy down on the Defenders. Their shields took most of it, but turned white hot and somewhat melted from the force of the blast. One of the Defenders didn't have his shield up, and took the blast with his armor alone. It was white hot and partially liquefied, and he let out the most pained scream Lilith had ever heard.

The balls began to glow again, rapidly darting through the air, trying to decide who to attack. Several Lance ran for the hallway, but suddenly, the halls began to brightly glow, far brighter than before. The Lance in the hall were forced to run back into the chamber as the balls unleashed a second wave.

Some of this blast hit the crates, forcing Lilith to cover her head in her hands to protect against the burning shrapnel. More inhuman screams filled the room, as their armors melted against their flesh all around them. Lilith uncovered her head, and noticed the hallways begin to smoke, apparently doing something similar to overheating.

The Defenders and Engineers who didn't take such direct shots had managed to fight through their agony enough to try to pat themselves out, to no avail. The balls darted about, choosing new targets.

"Please, no!" One yelled, with a few others giving similar pleas.

Another blast of energy from each ball hit the Lance. Several of their screams were immediately cut short, as their armor was blasted down into positions the human body couldn't bend to.

"WANT SOME MORE?! SURE!" Patricia screamed.

The balls darted about, finding new targets. The remaining Lance were mostly immobile, screaming in their molten caskets. One of them had been knocked onto his stomach, and was now attempting to crawl out into the glowing hallway. Smoke was beginning to collect in the dome, as the glowing defense was being pushed far beyond what it was meant to endure.

"Patricia, stop!" Lilith protested.

"Good idea! Let's let them suffer!" Patricia said with a laugh.

The glow turned off, and the balls stopped moving. The screams had turned into silent, muffled cries. Lilith got to her feet, looked them over, and put them out of their miseries.

Once she shot the final one, Lilith simply stood there, watching the armors cool. She knew Patricia was unstable, but she didn't realize it was this bad. The had essentially tortured these men to death, and somehow managed to overload the glowing defenses.

"Pretty awesome, wasn't it?" Patricia asked happily.

"...yeah, sure." Lilith replied, shaking her head.

"...what? What's your problem?" Patricia asked.

"Short version? That was sick, Patricia. What the hell is wrong with you?"

An awkward silence.

Suddenly, the hallways began to glow again.

"...you're kidding, Patricia!" Lilith yelled, but got only static in response.

This was strange. Every other time someone decided not to reply, there was merely silence on the Echo. This was the first time she had heard static. Lilith looked down the hallway she came from. The glow seemed to continue down the entire length of the hallway, cutting visibility to just a dozen feet or so.

Lilith turned around, and came face to face with the apparition.

This time, it didn't disappear the moment Lilith blinked. It stood calmly in place, staring at Lilith, a look of rage on its face.

It was Commandant Steele.


	11. Spheres

Lilith was surprised, but held her ground. She had pissed a lot of people off in her time, but never enough to be haunted.

Steele was transparent, and entirely a light shade of blue. Such details as her tattoos were only visible thanks to outlines that glowed slightly more than the rest of her.

Her face was full of rage, but something seemed wrong about it. She seemed more... bestial than before. She stood there, breathing hard, focused entirely on Lilith.

"...turn that frown upside down." Lilith said.

"I told you..." Steele replied, seemingly speaking with both her own voice and a hoarse, demonic voice at the same time, "You belong to me!"

Steele quickly went for a roundhouse kick. Lilith tried to block, but Steele's leg passed right through her arm. The kick connected with Lilith's head, knocking her to the ground. Lilith scrambled to her feet and quickly backed away.

Lilith backed against the wall, Steele smirking as she advanced. Lilith sprung forward with a kick, but her foot harmlessly passed through. Lilith landed, partially inside Steele, and tried an energy blast with both hands. This again had no effect. Steele grabbed Lilith by the neck and shoved her forward, pinning her back against the wall. Steele then yanked her away, spun around to face the open room, and connected with a hard kick to Lilith's gut. Lilith was knocked into the air, hit the ground on her stomach, and slid a few feet back before coming to a stop.

"...okay, that hurt." Lilith said, holding her stomach with one hand.

"Pain? You want pain?" Steele yelled with her two voices. "Let me show you what pain is!"

Steele thrust a hand at Lilith, and suddenly, a massive tentacle burst out from it. Lilith instinctively dove to the side, and erupted into the phasewalk plane. The tentacle was blasted apart by the wave of fire, the pieces simply vanishing before they landed.

This was interesting. The phasewalk effect managed to hurt Steele. Was this really a ghost, or was Steele simply phasewalking? But even if she was, how did she create that tentacle? It looked eerily similar to one of Destroyer's...

Lilith, still phasewalking, got to her feet. Steele's hand returned to normal.

"...what the hell are you?" Lilith asked.

Steele just smirked, advanced on Lilith, and went for a sidekick. Lilith instinctively grabbed for Steele's foot, and managed to make contact. Lilith quickly twisted Steele's foot, spinning her around to face the wall. She raised a foot high and stomped down on the back of Steele's knee, slamming her knee to the ground. Wasting no time, Lilith released Steele's foot, grabbed her head on both hands, and smoothly snapped her neck.

Or, at least, that's what a normal neck would have done. Steele's head had been yanked around 180 degrees, and she didn't seem affected. She looked up at Lilith, a smirk on her face, and got to her feet.

"I will not be defeated. I am eternal." Steele said in her two voices.

Steele turned around to face Lilith, her head remaining fixed on Lilith, turning back to its proper position.

Lilith had never remained phasewalking for this long, and it was taking more and more effort to maintain it. Steele seemed to know this, and her smirk grew wider.

Suddenly, five Lance soldiers ran in from one of the halls, their shields taking the glow with no trouble. Either they couldn't see Steele or they just didn't notice, as they just ran between Lilith and Steele and down the other hallway.

"Faster, before she works out any more damn defenses!" One yelled. They were going for Patricia.

Steele suddenly grabbed Lilith by the hair and yanked her back, hitting a knee to the back of her head. Lilith yelped in pain, grabbing Steele's wrists and trying to pry them away. Steele held on, yanking Lilith upright, and kicked the back of her right knee. Lilith would have been knocked to her knees, but she held her grip on Steele's wrists, and kept standing. She hit some elbows behind her, distracting Steele a bit, and began running backwards. She hit Steele against the wall.

Steele shoved Lilith away. Lilith almost fell flat on her face, but managed to keep standing. As soon as she got her balance, though, Steele connected with a kick to the back of her head. Lilith stumbled forward and hit the ground.

Steele quickly strafed to the side, giving a mostly human laugh, and charged for a kick to Lilith's temple. Lilith quickly got her hands up, hitting Steele's foot with an energy blast. The force sent Steele's lower body backwards while her upper body kept going forwards, and Steele fell right on her face, her legs landing on Lilith's back.

Lilith scrambled to her feet, and immediately felt dizzy. Every second she stayed phasewalked now was physically painful. Her head was in such pain that her vision had begun to blur.

Steele got to her feet. Lilith thrust her hands out to blast Steele's face, but Steele ducked under her hands, and thrust her own hands up at Lilith's chin, unleashing her own energy pulse. Lilith stumbled back, holding her jaw.

Steele went for a high side kick to Lilith's face. Lilith countered with a high kick of her own, aimed at Steele's kicking knee. Steele was pushed upward by the kick, her legs awkwardly bending apart. She hit the ground on her back, quickly pushed herself into a sitting position, and ate a kick to the face from Lilith.

Steele pushed herself to her feet, facing away from Lilith. Lilith walked forward and grabbed Steele, and ran her for one of the hallways. The moment Steele entered the glow, Lilith finally came out of phasewalk, erupting in a blast of fire.

Lilith stumbled back, holding her head. Steele's form looked blurred, out of focus, but it slowly began pulling itself together. Steele slowly turned around, unaffected by the glowing field. There went that plan.

Steele smirked, and walked towards Lilith. Lilith shook her head in disbelief, and backed away. Either she could keep phasewalking indefinitely, or she really was some kind of specter. Either way, Lilith had no idea how to put her down.

Suddenly, the floating balls began to glow, this time with a deeper blue energy. Steele stopped dead, staring at them.

"...Patricia, don't worry about that! Get out, Lance are coming!" Lilith yelled into her Echo. But again, she only got static in response.

Steele appeared to vanish. One of the balls quickly shone a pale blue light down where she was, and she slowly came back into view.

"I will not be defeated once again!" Steele yelled, her demonic voice seeming to have more presence.

The other balls began to glow very brightly. Lilith backed away, hitting the wall. It seemed like the balls were about to unleash a massive energy attack. Steele struggled, trying to move, but the light was apparently keeping her immobile. The balls came down to eye level, spinning around her, glowing too bright to look at directly.

Lilith turned to run down the hall, but it was too late. The balls unleashed their power, turning the world pure white even through Lilith's clenched eyelids. She didn't even feel herself hit the ground before she blacked out.

* * *

Lilith stood in the science room with four pedestals. Everything on the pedestals was more or less where it was when Lilith had first found this room. Now, though, there were ten people in it, hastily working on their computers and their various devices.

Once again, the world was just... wrong. The further anything in the world was from the woman Lilith was standing behind, the darker and more obscured by odd shadows everything seemed to be. As well, the people further from the woman were performing actions that made no sense. Their hands would jump from one point in space to another, their hair seemed to be one vague blob rather than individual strands, their outlines were heavily blurred, and so on.

The woman Lilith was standing behind was busy at one of the computer balls. Lilith slowly walked up to the woman and tapped her shoulder. Once again, the woman didn't notice. Lilith nodded to herself, already knowing who this was. Still, she leaned over the pedestal to see the woman's face, just to make sure. She was right – it was her Lookalike.

Lilith looked at the faces of the others in the room. None of them looked familiar, save for the one working on the Panacea Viability Test. This was the woman Lookalike ran out of this place with in her previous dream. As Lilith watched, the woman appeared to make one final repair on the mechanics inside the Test device. She snapped the casing back on the bottom of the device, looked at Lookalike, and smiled, holding it up. Lookalike nodded in response, smiling. The two were apparently friends.

"I've almost got the code worked out, but I'll need to go to the broadcast pedestal to finish the job." Lookalike said, her hands a blur in the hologram.

"Good, good." One of the men in the room said. "People, have you tested yourselves for viability?"

Everyone in the room nodded. The expressions on their faces betrayed who passed and who failed – all the women were viable, whatever that meant, while none of the men were. One of the men shed a tear, and made no effort to hide it.

"...alright, people, don't lose focus." The man at the large cylinder machine said. "It's not like this plan working equates to some kind of immortality."

"Still, why have we all just given up?" One woman exclaimed. "We're not dead yet!"

"We don't even know what the problem is, and even if we find it, it'll probably takes months of testing to work out the solution." Lookalike replied.

"But we can't just stop trying!" The woman screamed.

Everyone paused, looking at her. The woman looked at everyone, tears welling up in her eyes.

"We can't stop trying..." She whispered, wiping her eyes and returning to her own computer.

Everyone quietly worked on their computers and devices. Lilith looked at all of them, and began idly walking around the room. It became more difficult to tell what people were doing the further they were from Lookalike, but for the most part, it was doable. Even so, all anyone was doing was either working on computers or doing maintenance on devices. To Lilith, boring and meaningless.

"Everything is going according to plan with our children, right?" Lookalike's friend asked.

"Yes..." The man at the cylinder device replied. He was apparently in charge of this group.

"...but?" One woman asked.

"Well, who knows where evolution will take them over the years. They might stop being as genetically similar as we need." The cylinder man replied. "Let alone the fact that we'll no longer be around to guide them. They're a pitifully forgetful species. In two of their generations tops, we'll be nothing more than a forgotten memory to them."

"Our guardians and automated ships should keep them remembering." A man replied.

"Let's hope, my friend, let's hope." Cylinder Man replied. "They need to find us for this plan to work."

"We will live on through our children." Lookalike said.

Everyone in the room nodded in solemn agreement.

"...and we're sure the project will work?" A woman asked.

"As long as it takes the bait. We have to get it to the gate." Cylinder Man replied.

"Done!" Lookalike suddenly exclaimed.

Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and looked at her.

"All I need to do now is go to the broadcast pedestal and implement the code onto all the spheres!" Lookalike finished, wiping her hands proudly.

"You're sure? We only get one shot at this." Cylinder Man asked.

"Well, there's really only one way to test it... put the code on this sphere, and..." Lookalike's friend said.

There was an awkward pause. Finally, one woman nervously raised her hand.

"...are you sure?" Cylinder Man asked.

"...if it's going to happen..." The woman replied, her voice quivering, "I'd rather it be here and quick..."

Cylinder Man nodded. "Test once more, just to be safe." He said.

The woman reached into her pocket and pulled out a small metallic sphere, just like the one Lilith found. She walked over to Lookalike and handed it to her.

Lookalike placed the sphere on the pedestal, and pointed at a single symbol in her computer hologram. Immediately, the little sphere grew a faint glow.

As she did this, the woman walked over to the Panacea Viability Test, and stuck her hand in. It seemed to phasewalk while inside. She nodded to herself, and wiped her tear-filled eyes.

Lookalike picked up the sphere, which now glowed more brightly when touched, and walked over to the woman. The woman looked at her, and after a pause, held out her hand. Lookalike placed the sphere in her hand. The woman grabbed Lookalike's hand in both of hers', knuckles white from the strain. Lookalike just lowered her head in understanding, and placed her free hand comfortingly on the woman's shoulder.

"...I want you to do it." The woman whispered.

"...alright." Lookalike whispered back.

The woman didn't move for a few seconds, but finally let go of Lookalike. She held the sphere tightly in both hands, and backed away.

Lookalike looked around the room.

"I need a weapon." Lookalike said.

Lookalike's friend reached under her coat and pulled out a handgun.

"...what the hell are you doing?" Lilith asked, knowing full well they couldn't see or hear her.

Lookalike's friend walked to Lookalike, and as she did so, she suddenly transformed into Patricia Tannis. Nobody in the room seemed to notice, even as she handed the weapon to Lookalike.

Lookalike took a step towards the woman, and pressed the barrel of the gun against the woman's forehead. The room was deathly silent. Nobody dared to move or speak.

"...thank you..." The woman whispered, tears running down her face.

"...see you on the other side." Lookalike replied, and pulled the trigger.


	12. This Is Where The Fun Begins

Lilith woke up face down on the floor. Through blurred vision, she saw that she had fallen into the hallway. She instinctively pushed herself up in a panic, before realizing that the defensive glow was turned off. She got to her feet and quickly looked around for Steele. There was no sign of her, and the floating spheres were now dormant.

Lilith leaned back against the wall, wiping her eyes. Her head was still pounding from being phasewalked for so long.

It was clear that the dreams weren't some kind of vision of the past or future, unless, of course, Patricia was some kind of shapeshifter and just neglected to tell anyone. Still, again, this dream was disturbingly vivid and detailed. Everyone involved seemed to be discussing specific facts – things they were thoroughly knowledgeable about – and yet, Lilith herself had no clue what was going on. That wasn't normal.

Lilith wiped her forehead, her hand continuing down her face to the back of her neck. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the glowing sphere, and stared at it.

The people in her dreams were planning something, and these spheres seemed to play a crucial role. Passing that viability test seemed to mean that the plan would work on that person, but what was the plan? To be killed while holding one? Although, Lilith had never actually seen anyone get killed while holding one. In both dreams, she woke up just a split second before. Did the spheres make the viable holder cheat death, somehow?

Lilith pushed herself off the wall and looked both ways. The original plan was to continue down the hall and clean house some more, but apparently, Lance guards had made their way to Patricia. The glow had been turned off, so they must have gotten to her. But on the other hand, if they had indeed killed her, wouldn't they have noticed Lilith laying there as they came back?

"Patricia, you there?" Lilith asked into her Echo.

There was no more static, but there was no response, either.

Lilith picked up her weapons, looked both ways, and began to walk to where she left Patricia.

Suddenly, the Guardian Angel appeared to Lilith, obscuring virtually everything.

"What are you doing?" The Angel asked. "Turn around, the hostages need you! Tannis isn't there. Don't worry, she's fine. But you must go NOW, they don't have much time!"

With that, the Angel disappeared, before Lilith could say a word.

Lilith groaned. Guardian Angel had never let her say a word, and always disappeared before she could respond. It was quite aggravating.

Lilith paused, looking both ways, and eventually began to jog away from where she left Patricia. She passed through the testing chamber without trouble and continued down the opposite hallway.

This hallway came to a stop, intersecting with a hallway that went off to the left and to the right. To the right, it continued maybe ten feet before again stopping and branching to its' left and right. To the left, the hallway continued much further, but there were doors on either side of it. Lilith paused, looking both ways. There were apparently hostages somewhere, but where?

"LET ME GO!" Came a female scream from the left hallway. That answered that.

Several bandits poked their heads out from the doors, exchanging smirks and remarks. Lilith smiled.

"Heads up!" She called out. The bandits turned to face her as she began to run down the hall. She fired a quick burst at each of their heads, one by one, ripping through their cheap shields with ease. The final couple managed to get their weapons raised, but were put down before they could pull the triggers. Once Lilith got to the end of the hall, she spun around, checking for survivors. Hearing a set of footsteps, she grabbed a Proteon grenade. Rather than mod it, she simply threw it to the door the footsteps came from. It came to a stop just as a Lance soldier stepped out. He raised his rifle, and the grenade detonated in a good ol' fashioned wave of flame and concussive force. Metal shrapnel flew in all directions, and blood coated the nearby walls and floor.

"If armor worked, Knights would still be around." Lilith said with a smirk, and continued on.

This hallway made a turn to the right. Lilith ran down it, and in 30 feet, it ended. A single door opened to the left, entering a very large room. From the door to the opposite wall was a good 30 feet. The wall to the left was maybe 10 feet away, while the wall to the right was at least 50. Lilith could see that, to the right, the room made a right turn, meaning the room took an L shape. On the left wall was another door, leading to a hallway that trailed out of sight.

Blood splatter stained the floor all over, along with some severed appendages.

Ten bandits had just entered the room from the left door, each pushing along two hostages. Their hands were bound in what looked like clothing, and from their dress, they were residents of either New Haven or some other little town. From around the corner on the right, two more bandits, dressed in raggedy, bloody doctor scrubs, walked into view. The hostages panicked as soon as they saw these doctors, screaming and desperately trying to break free. Two of the bandits laughed and shoved their hostages towards the doctors, who hastily moved to grab them.

Lilith raised her Pyre at these two and opened fire. The rounds ripped them apart and set them ablaze, and immediately, everyone dove for cover. The hostages broke free from their captors. Some bandits went after them, while the others hastily grabbed for their weapons. Lilith was able to put five bullets in another bandit's skull before they opened fire. Their bullets left their barrels, and Lilith erupted into the phasewalk plane, bullets passing the air she occupied just milliseconds before.

The bandits looked around in confusion, screaming at each other. They ignored the hostages now, who were all backed against the walls, terrified.

Lilith ran for the two doctors. They were still standing side by side, looking around. Lilith jumped for them, turning her body horizontal. Her upper body hit one, her legs hit the other, and they both fell to the ground with her on top. Before they could try to crawl away, Lilith reentered the real world, erupting in a wave of explosive power. The other bandits and hostages quickly turned, managing to see pieces of the doctors fly in all directions, with Lilith smiling and laying on the ground where they once stood. They raised their weapons, but Lilith already had hers' ready. She quickly sprayed the room with fire, making them all dive for cover. She grabbed her last Proteon, passed it by her Transfusion mod, threw it, and dove behind the corner.

As the grenade detonated and the bandits screamed, Lilith looked at what was here. There were ten 'operating tables', made of boxes and equipment stacked on top of each other. The floor here was stained with much more blood than the other half of the room. There were also three more computer balls here, projecting their holograms.

"Sadists!" Lilith yelled, and jumped out , Pyre blazing. The bandits were all visibly hurt, from stray bullets and from the grenade, and were much too slow in trying to dive for cover. Three of them burst into flame. The final four raised their rifles and opened fire, their spray inaccurate from the pain they were in. Lilith simply walked towards them, letting her shield take the shots that managed to hit, and unslung her Matador. The bandits quickly backed up, but it wasn't enough. Lilith fired a shot, and the front two were immediately downed. The other two took some stray pellets, and winced. Lilith dropped the matador and ran for them. They raised their weapons, but Lilith got there first. She grabbed their heads, slammed them together, and unleashed an energy pulse from each hand on impact. Their heads exploded on impact, and that was it.

Lilith looked at the hostages. They were all staring at her, in varying states of panic.

"...any of you remember the way out?" Lilith asked.

They looked at her, then glanced at each other.

"...I do!" One man said, stepping forward.

Lilith walked up to him and untied his hands.

"Help them and go." Lilith said. "Is there anyone else?"

"No, that's all of them." Came a voice.

Everyone turned towards the source. It was a Hispanic man, standing in the doorway of the hallway on the left wall. He was tall and slender, and wore a rather unassuming set of blue jeans, black shirt, and brown leather jacket. On the other hand, for Pandora, this was well dressed.

The hostages all ran for the hallway Lilith entered from. The man quickly reached into his jacket, retrieving a Repeater, but stopped cold when Lilith raised her Pyre at him. He stared at her, and slowly smiled, putting the Repeater back.

Once the last hostage had gone, Lilith walked to the hallway, standing between it and him. She kept her weapon trained on him.

"Those designs... you're another one, aren't you?" The man asked.

Lilith said nothing.

"Oh, don't play the silent game." The man continued. "You fit the profile, I know you. You're the new girl, the Liberator of Pandora, thinking you can just roll into that dump of a settlement and right the wrongs of this planet.

"The money's in that sort of thing." Lilith replied with a smirk, not lowering her gun. "And you are?"

"Right, right, alright." The man said. "I am Major Valdez, of the Atlas Corporation."

Lilith groaned.

"The feeling is mutual." Valdez replied with a smirk.

"Well, far be it from me to question how people make a buck in this world." Lilith said. "But," she waved a hand around the room, "what the hell are you doing?"

Valdez nodded.

"Well, for you to understand... see, the Eridians, they weren't bound by all the damn rules and regulations that we've chained ourselves to when it comes to genetic research." Valdez said. "There was no bitching about stem cells in their world. They just went for it. And do you know what the end result of their hard work was?"

Lilith just shrugged, keeping her weapon on him.

"Yes, you do." Valdez continued. "You know, Commandant Steele knew, and the... ten, I believe?, other women like you out there all know."

Valdez began to pace back and forth, deep in thought.

"Through extensive genetic modification, they managed to exponentially increase their brainpower, and grow new organs for the purposes of... well, you know." Valdez said, waving a hand, imitating Lilith's usual palm thrust when she wanted to unleash an energy blast. "But, even after dozens, hundreds of years perfecting this, they had two main problems. First, the process was, as you can imagine, messy. Crack open the skull, slice open pretty much everything else, and then it was days, weeks of probing and grafting. I imagine they were much better at this sort of thing than we'll ever be, but still, an accident prone process. Second, for some reason, men and women are genetically unique enough for the process to not work on us men."

"Well, women ARE better." Lilith replied.

"Indeed." Valdez continued. "Well, before they perished, the Eridians managed to solve the first problem. While we haven't figured out how to actually use the devices, the Eridians managed to swap intense surgery with these." He reached into his jacket and retrieved a metal sphere, slightly bigger than Lilith's. "Using millions of precise pulses of varying wavelengths of energy, devices like this one are capable of causing mutations in the body, with an end result identical to the results of a successful surgery. One of the few side effects to this, from what I can tell is... memory loss?"

The look on Lilith's face must have told him what he needed to know.

"Damn it, same with Steele." Valdez said, pocketing the sphere. "Well, no matter, because my band of merry men here have learned to perform that old fashioned surgical method. And, what's better, we've begun to succeed where the Eridians failed. With each passing... test subject, we come closer and closer to a completely successful modification of a human male."

"Yes, well, that's pretty much why I've been hired to kill you." Lilith said.

That wasn't technically true, but just imagine what Pierce would pay up once she heard about this.

"You won't be doing that." Valdez said simply. "And besides, this place isn't the only area on Pandora where we've been running these tests. Soon, we will be able to successfully augment our Crimson Lance soldiers with the powers you hold, and with that, Pandora, and all her treasure troves of Eridian technology, will become the sole property of the Atlas Corporation."

"Maliwan disagrees." Lilith replied, and fired a short burst.

The rounds hit Valdez's shield, harmlessly disintegrating. He sighed.

"Another thing we've been able to do," He said, pulling out a computer ball, "is learn to control the Guardians."

He waved a hand over the ball, activating the hologram, and quickly tapped at a few symbols.

The symbols on the walls suddenly began to glow. Four glowing balls of light began to form in the room. They quickly glowed brighter, a shape forming in each one. After a few seconds, the glow dissipated, and an Arch Guardian stood in its place.

"Oh hell." Lilith sighed, and raised her weapon.


	13. Probably the Best Day of her Life

Guardians of any kind weren't that big of a problem if you had the right gun. Unfortunately, Lilith didn't.

Lilith opened fire with her Pyre on the nearest Guardian. Of course, its vast shields took the shots easily. The guardians strafed to the sides, trying to circle Lilith. Lilith kept walking backwards, preventing that from happening.

Suddenly, the closest Guardian dashed forward, firing its smaller cannon. Lilith quickly erupted into a phasewalk, disappearing in a wave of electricity. The Guardian's shields took a big hit. Lilith quickly grabbed onto the Guardian, yanking herself up onto its shoulders. She kicked off its back and reentered reality, hitting it with another wave of electricity. She landed just as the Guardian spin around to face her. She grabbed her fallen Matador as it charged, and fired a shot into its chest.

Its shields finally died out in a flash of blue light. Otherwise unaffected, the Guardian opened fire again. Lilith dove to the side, landing on her stomach, still taking a few shots in her legs. The Guardian charged forward, standing where Lilith once stood, and prepared to open fire again. Lilith spun onto her back and fired her Pyre into its head. Guardian shields were tough, but their armor was pathetic. It only took a few seconds for the Guardian to collapse.

Lilith turned to the other three, and realized that they had already fired their big cannons. The massive energy blasts had arced in the air, just grazing the high ceiling, and had already begun to rain down. Lilith scrambled to her feet and ran, getting only a few feet before they hit. Her shields mostly depleted, and she was sent flying across the room, hitting the ground a good 20 feet away.

Once again, how could the Eridians not handle the Destroyer? These Guardians were a much bigger pain in the ass.

The Guardians fired their big cannons again. Lilith opened fire on the nearest Guardian, emptying the clip, then dove around the corner into the surgery area. The Guardian's shots tended to seek out their targets, but were also pretty stupid about it. The shots curved in the air, straight for her, and slammed harmlessly into the wall that now stood between them.

"...this is what you do? Run and hide? Your reputation is a lie." Valdez taunted.

Lilith smirked, and quickly reloaded. She looked around the corner, took aim, and fired at Valdez. He simply stood there, not bothering to move, as his shield absorbed the rounds. Lilith's clip ran out, and Valdez just yawned.

One of the Guardians dashed forward, heading straight for Lilith. Lilith quickly reloaded and opened fire, her rounds uselessly absorbing into the shield. When it got close enough, Lilith ducked behind the corner. The Guardian came around it, and Lilith emptied the rest of her Matador drum into it. Its shields depleted, and its midsection took severe damage. The machine paused, then readied its small cannon to open fire. Lilith erupted into a phasewalk, her explosive blast destroying the Guardian.

Lilith ran around the corner. The Guardians were now motionless, having lost their target. Valdez was waiting, his face betraying irritation and worry.

One phase blast wouldn't be enough to put an Arch Guardian down, and she'd be at the point blank mercy of the Guardian as soon as she pulled it off, but Lilith had to go for it anyway. She ran for the nearest Guardian, jumped for it, and reentered reality with another explosive blast. The Guardian's shield shimmered, but it held firm. Both Guardians turned to face her, and readied their small cannons.

Lilith dove to the side, and had just enough time to see Valdez aiming his Repeater at her before he opened fire. The powerful Atlas model severely taxed Lilith's shield with each shot. Lilith stopped dead and strafed back the other way, keeping the Guardians between herself and Valdez.

The Guardians opened fire. Lilith turned and ran back, taking some shots. With her shield on its last legs, she spun around and opened fire. Her shield and its shield cut out at the same time, but as usual, the Guardians stopped shooting once she got too far away.

Maybe it was the stupidly predictable behavior of these things that allowed the Destroyer to wipe them out.

The Guardians raised their big cannons and fired their energy blasts. Lilith emptied her clip into the Guardian's head, and down it went.

Lilith ran back into the surgery area, the wall taking the energy shots once again. She reloaded, waiting for the Guardian to decide whether to come around the corner or fire another shot. With her shield recharging and a corner to provide cover, this last Guardian stood no chance. Lilith leaned around the corner, opened fire, and the Guardian went down.

Lilith smirked and reloaded. Valdez hadn't moved.

Lilith opened her mouth to speak, when an explosion at her feet sent her high into the air, depleting her shield. She landed on her back, and heard metal objects land all around her. MIRV grenades. Lilith erupted into an explosive phasewalk just as the grenades exploded. She got to her feet without a pause and ran for Valdez.

The symbols on the walls suddenly began to glow. The ones level to Lilith's torso glowed brighter than the others.

Suddenly, a bright beam erupted from all four walls, striking Lilith. It didn't hurt her, but she was yanked out of her phasewalk, with her usual explosion simply fizzling out.

"You think this place doesn't have defenses against that?" Valdez asked, tossing the computer ball in his hand with a smug look on his face.

His shield seemed to be a new model, or maybe even Eridian, but there was only one thing Lilith could do about it. She ran for him and opened fire with her Pyre. His shield took every shot without a problem. He smirked and returned fire, slowly backing up. Lilith's shield had begun to regenerate, taking two shots, but was depleted again.

Lilith managed to get to Valdez before he fired a third shot, and kicked his hand away. His shield shimmered on contact, making Lilith feel like she had just kicked a statue. Valdez tried to aim again, but Lilith quickly smacked his hand away with a pulse of energy. His shield shimmered, but didn't break.

Valdez tried to quickly back up. Lilith hooked her leg around his, tripping him onto his back. He landed beside the wall. She pressed a foot on his chest and emptied her Pyre at his face. Again, his shield took it all.

"...are you done?" Valdez asked, smirking.

_'Hold him there.'_ Lilith suddenly heard.

Lilith paused, confused. That voice sounded so familiar...

Valdez took this opportunity to raise his Repeater. Lilith took her foot off him to kick his wrist against the wall. His shield took the kick, leaving him unaffected. He aimed again. Lilith crouched down, holding him down with her knee, and grabbed his wrist. He fired a shot, which missed Lilith's head by a hair. He grabbed one of her wrists with his free hand, and they fought for control of the gun.

_'It won't hurt you.'_ Lilith heard.

As they struggled, the symbols began to glow. Just as before, the brightness on all four walls began to concentrate on a select few symbols, but this time, they seemed to lock on Valdez. Valdez panicked, and shoved Lilith away. Lilith landed on her butt. Valdez tried to scramble away, but she quickly grabbed his ankle and yanked him back to where the glowing symbols lined up.

A powerful beam of light erupted from the symbols, passing harmlessly through Lilith, crossing where Valdez laid.

Valdez's shield glowed brightly, almost obscuring him from view. After a few seconds, the glow violently shimmered, and then died out.

Valdez's face betrayed a sign of panic as he looked his body over, realizing his shield was gone. He scrambled to his feet as Lilith raised her Pyre. He turned and ran out the hallway Lilith entered from. Lilith fired, but her bullets were stopped by a shield. Lilith recognized the glow of this shield, though. It was just another shield out of Zed's machines. This was no problem.

Lilith reloaded her weapons and ran after him. He had already disappeared around the corner. She turned the corner, and ran into a pistol whip from Valdez. She stumbled back, hitting the wall. Valdez quickly aimed and fired point blank into her chest. He got four shots off before Lilith managed to kick him away. Her shield took the shots, but there wasn't much left. Atlas made damn good guns.

Valdez was kicked back a few feet, but managed to keep standing. Lilith quickly swapped for her Matador. Valdez rushed her, taking a shot to the chest. His shield was depleted, with a couple of pellets breaking through. Valdez winced, but managed to grab the Matador. He yanked the butt upwards, hitting Lilith's chin with it, and took that distraction to yank it away. He spun it around, took aim, and fired. Lilith jumped around the corner, the pellets hitting the wall. Without waiting, she went for a roundhouse kick. Valdez followed her around the corner and walked right into it. He dropped the Matador and was kicked away.

Lilith looked around the corner and took aim, but had to duck for cover as Valdez ran and emptied his Repeater at her. As soon as he stopped, Lilith jumped out and returned fire. Valdez managed to duck into one of the doors down this hall.

Lilith grabbed her Matador, but realized she had no extra shells for it. Thank god for the witchcraft that allowed for devices that regenerated submachingun ammo.

Lilith readied her Caustic submachinegun, now that Valdez's shield was either gone or had just barely begun to regenerate. She ran down the hall, fired blindly into the door Valdez entered to make him duck for cover, then looked inside.

The room was maybe ten by twenty feet, and full of equipment. It was mostly Atlas stuff, with some Eridian devices spliced into them. Most of it looked like it was related to biology. There were containers of green liquid, bloody surgical tools, and jars containing odd looking flesh and organs. This must have been where they were growing the organs that Valdez claimed were involved in turning people into Sirens.

Valdez, who was hiding behind a large, rectangular machine, quickly opened fire. Lilith ducked behind the wall. She took this time to glance through the two other doors, through which the rooms themselves were visible from this angle. They too were filled with similar equipment.

"Come out here and die like a man!" Lilith yelled with a smirk. She reached her weapon into the door and fired blindly, hearing equipment take the shots and jars shatter.

"Don't!" Valdez screamed.

Lilith laughed and yanked her hand back just as Valdez opened fire. His bullets passed through the hallway, into the opposite room, and hit some of the equipment in there.

"Hypocrite!" Lilith said with a laugh, and opened fire on that room. Equipment casings were blasted off, circuitry flying everywhere, and jars exploded in showers of bloody water.

Lilith heard Valdez come out of hiding and run for the door. She backed up, knowing he'd aim for her the second he came out. She thrust her hands out just as he came through the door. He raised his Repeater just as her hands got to it, and she blasted it out of his hands with an energy pulse. It hit the ground and slid to a halt several feet down the hall.

Valdez's shield had regenerated enough to take the blast, so he wasn't hurt. He glanced at his gun get away from him, then quickly hit a hard punch to Lilith's gut. Lilith doubled over, and Valdez followed up with a kick to her head. Lilith spun around and hit the floor, face down.

Valdez reached behind his back, under his jacket, and pulled out a makeshift cleaver. Lilith scrambled to her feet, unaware. She spun around to face Valdez, and he attacked with an upward swing, from her gut to her ribcage. The cleaver sliced through the shield, gouging into her body. Lilith screamed and fell back, getting a good view of her blood splattering against the walls as she hit the ground.

Fighting through the pain, she raised her Caustic weapon, but Valdez quickly grabbed it and yanked it away. Lilith still had her Pyre, but the way it had fallen behind her made it impossible to grab it before Valdez could fire.

Valdez took a few steps back, aiming at her. His face was full of anger, but it slowly turned to a smile.

"Maliwan makes pieces of crap, but this will do." He said.

Suddenly, an explosion of blinding white energy erupted behind Valdez. He was thrown violently into the air, hitting the wall and ceiling before hitting the ground shoulder-first. His shield was mostly gone, so it offered very little protection before it failed. His clothing was burnt, and Lilith could smell burning flesh.

The light from the explosion faded, and in its place, a smile on her face, stood Patricia Tannis.

Tattoos, identical to Lilith's, now covered Patricia's body, and her normally blue eyes were now Lilith's yellow. Her Eridian Lightning was slung over her back.

If Lilith wasn't in such pain, she'd have had her face buried in her palms. Only Patricia could be obsessed enough with the Eridians to figure out how to do this to herself.

Valdez rolled onto his back, face full of pain. Patricia calmly walked up to him and grabbed his cleaver. She grabbed him by his collar and yanked him up onto his feet, holding him against the wall. She raised the cleaver and gently pressed it against his face, trailing it across his cheeks.

"Now, how did that brain surgery work?" She asked innocently.

Valdez fought through his pain enough to look at Patricia.

"Kill me if you want. It won't matter." He said between pained breaths. "This is just one place of research among many."

"I guess that makes you meaningless, then." Patricia replied simply.

With that, she drew the cleaver back, and slammed it into Valdez's head. It sliced clean into his skull, spraying Patricia with blood.

"...ew." Patricia said, dropping Valdez's lifeless body and wiping her face.

Patricia turned to Lilith. Lilith's wound was already half healed thanks to her regenerative shield. There was an awkward pause.

"...how?" Lilith asked.

Patricia reached into her pocket and pulled out a small, glowing sphere, identical to Lilith's. Lilith noticed that this sphere glowed quite brightly, like Lilith's did when she touched hers', rather than the subtle glow hers' usually had when Patricia touched it.

"Right after you yelled at me, the testing chamber and both hallways leading to it suddenly became totally inaccessible from my computer." Patricia said. "It was weird, but then I realized that you yelled at me, you're a bitch, and to hell with you, you self-righteous Neanderthal."

"...sounds fair." Lilith said slowly.

"So I stopped working on that computer and looked around that room, at all the other balls." Patricia continued. "I realized that a bunch of them looked like yours, so I grabbed one. And then..." Her voice trailed off.

Lilith pushed herself to her feet, gritting her teeth from the pain.

"...and then?" Lilith asked.

"It was... like a vision." Patricia said. "Not some hocus pocus mystical crap, of course. That's bullshit. I'm guessing the ball projected a recording into my brain. Anyway, I saw some researchers, working in that room with the Panacea Viability Test. And... you and I were there, for some reason. Anyway, I heard those researchers explain that these balls," she tossed it in her hand, "are a means of passing on their 'genetic gift' along with 'themselves' as a reward for 'helping them survive.'"

So the dreams WERE something more. Patricia had a vision just like Lilith's, apparently at some other point during the scene Lilith had seen.

"Then what happened?" Lilith asked.

"Well, that's when the recording ended." Patricia said. "I dropped the ball, and then..." She motioned to her body.

"...just like that, you just became... this?" Lilith asked.

"I'm just as confused as you are." Patricia replied.

Valdez was apparently telling the truth, then. The Eridians had managed to alleviate the need for surgery by using these spheres to make the necessary changes with pulses of energy. This had to mean that this is how Lilith, Steele, and the other Sirens that were supposedly out there had become what they were. But why, then, had Lilith and Steele lost their memories, but not Patricia? And for that matter, how did Lilith come across one of these spheres originally?

Lilith thought about the other part of Patricia's vision. The sphere had something to do with helping the Eridians survive. In her vision, they treated the spheres like they were some kind of Holy Grail. As far as Lilith could tell, they somehow allowed the holder to cheat death. Why else would the woman in Lilith's dream allow herself to be shot at while holding one? But if that was the case, what were Lilith and the other Sirens being 'rewarded' for? She didn't do anything to help the Eridians survive... unless... what did 'passing themselves on' mean?

"Lilith!" Patricia yelled, snapping Lilith out of her thoughts.

"...right, right, sorry." Lilith said. "Anything else?"

"No, that's all I know. I touched the ball and here I am." Patricia replied. "...you're welcome."

Lilith looked at her wound. It had completely healed.

"Thanks." Lilith said, wiping the blood off herself.

"You should be thankful." Patricia said. "Right after that happened, I got stormed by some Crimson Lance. Being shot at is more annoying than being yelled at, so I went back to the computer and saved your ass."

"You took out his shield?" Lilith asked.

"And turned off the... 'phasewalk' inhibitors." Patricia replied. "The Eridians had their own word for that, but it doesn't translate into anything."

Lilith paused. This was a lot to take in.

"How much do you remember? Like, of your whole life." Lilith asked.

"...a lot?" Patricia replied, confused.

Well, that settled that. The memory loss was just Lilith's problem, for the most part. Why couldn't she or Steele remember anything, while Patricia seemed to remember everything?

Lilith then considered another question.

"Before you took out his shield, did you say anything to me?" She asked. Maybe, in the heat of the moment, she had mistaken voices in her Echo for voices in her head.

"...no." Patricia replied. "Why?"

"I heard someone, just as the symbols started to glow." Lilith said. "She told me to just hold him down, and that whatever was about to happen wouldn't hurt me."

"...maybe that was common sense talking." Patricia said.

Lilith smirked, hiding her confusion. Who was that, then? She sounded so familiar, but Lilith couldn't place her.

"Lilith! Lilith, are you still here?!" Came a panicked voice in Lilith's Echo. It was Helena Pierce. Lilith held up a hand to Patricia, and motioned to her Echo. Patricia turned her attention from Lilith to her own body art, admiring it.

"Still on Pandora, yes." Lilith replied, giving Patricia an odd look.

"We're being overrun here!" Pierce yelled, gunfire and screams echoing in the background. "We can't hold them off for much longer! Get over here!"

"It'll... it'll take a while!" Lilith said, having to yell the last part over an explosion.

"Hurry!" Pierce yelled. "They're our own citizens! And they're somehow doing things just like you! We can't-"

Pierce's voice cut out, and silence followed.

Lilith paused, looking at Patricia. As much as she did things just to get paid, she wasn't about to let New Haven get slaughtered. Besides, Pierce still had her guns. But she knew Patricia probably couldn't be dragged out of this Eridian wonderland with a tractor. This was going to be a tough sell.

The direct approach was Lilith's speciality.

"Patricia, New Haven is under some kind of siege right now. We need to go." She said.

"...are you insane?" Patricia asked. "Like hell we're just abandoning this place to be looted by those savages out there!

"I'm pretty sure Crimson Lance won't let that happen." Lilith replied, knowing that wasn't going to help.

"And we can't let them take this stuff, either!" Patricia persisted.

"They won't take anything, though. They seemed happy to do all their work right here!" Lilith replied.

"So, what, we leave these balls here for them to just pick up, turning into us? That'd be a lot worse than the loss of that hick town!" Patricia said.

"Men can't use them, though, and I've only ever met one Crimson Lance woman. And she was already one of us!" Lilith replied.

Lilith suddenly considered something. Surely Steele wasn't the only woman in the whole of the Atlas Corporation. Why didn't they try using the spheres on others? She remembered Valdez saying the spheres could turn people into 'Sirens', but he was holding a different one. A bigger one. Did Atlas even realize what the smaller spheres did?

"...what makes you think men can't use them?" Patricia asked.

"Valdez said so. That's why they were doing the surgery instead." Lilith replied. "Check the computer, it must be in there somewhere."

Patricia paused. Now was the time to seal the deal.

"Patricia, you can't be this far gone." Lilith persisted. "You saw what Atlas is doing to people in their 'research.' Are you really going to shrug your shoulders and let it happen?"

Patricia rolled her eyes and groaned.

"We take the Runner to the nearest New U station." Lilith continued. "We teleport to New Haven, and-"

"Nearest station's a good 20 minute drive." Patricia interjected.

"Okay, so what? We drive there and we drive back, 40 minutes. And when we actually warp to New Haven, all we're fighting are some underfed bandits, some more test subjects, and maybe some Lance guys." Lilith said. "Ten minutes, tops. We'll be back here within an hour. Not enough time for Atlas to realize Valdez isn't responding, come down, realize what happened, take everything, and fly off."

Patricia looked at Lilith, and sighed.

"One hour. I'm holding you to that." She said.

"One hour." Lilith replied, holding a hand up.

Patricia paused, thinking it over again.

"...alright, let's go." She finally said.


	14. Gonna Need A Newer Haven

The Runner sped across the landscape of yellow grass and toxic vines, Patricia behind the wheel and Lilith on the gun.

In the past four hours, Lilith had been responsible for the deaths of two people who were probably high ranking members of the Atlas Corporation. Steele had apparently gone mental and started working outside of what they wanted to do, so they had probably written her off, but Valdez was still working under them. What would Atlas do when they realized Valdez was dead and the Eridian wonderland was no longer under their control? Send down an army to reclaim it? Go the cliched 'If we can't have it, nobody can' route and simply glass the planet with a thousand warheads? They could do it. Nobody cared about this wasteland of a planet all that much. The other corporations would be upset, but there would be no massive, Greenpeace-inspired public outcry that would be their downfall. Atlas had nothing to lose and everything to gain in unleashing hell on Pandora.

Lilith thought about what had happened in the Eridian wonderland.

The apparition had turned out to be Commandant Steele, which in and of itself was a mystery. What was more confusing, however, was that if Patricia didn't activate the defenses that were apparently designed with apparitions in mind, who did? And for that matter, who was it who told Lilith to keep Valdez in the path of those beams?

Lilith looked at Patricia.

If what Patricia said was true, then the Eridian wonderland was a ticking time bomb for a wave of new Sirens. Apparently, all that was required to create one was for someone who could pass that Panacea Viability Test to simply touch one. It was sheer dumb luck that nobody from Atlas or anywhere else who touched one was capable of passing. But once someone figured out what those spheres could do...

Finally, Lilith couldn't help but wonder about a connection between Patricia turning herself into a Siren, and Patricia suddenly taking the place of Lookalike's friend in her dreams. Even more confusing was how she and Patricia were now sharing the same-

"We're here!" Patricia suddenly yelled back.

The Runner slowed to a stop in front of a New-U Station. As usual, it was situated on a metal platform in the middle of nowhere, along with Zed and Marcus's machines. Lilith and Patricia climbed out of the Runner.

"You should buy some stuff here. You won't last two minutes with no shield." Lilith said.

"Seeing as how you're dragging me here, I think you should treat." Patricia replied.

Lilith groaned. "Take your picks." She said.

Patricia smiled and walked to the machines.

Lilith was more or less sure at this point that Patricia wasn't out to betray her. She had more than enough chances to go for that and she never jumped on them. Well, killing Valdez instead of her was a fairly good indication of that, too. What was concerning now, though, was here apparent complete and utter disregard for everyone. How trustworthy could she be if Lilith had to grovel and bribe her to come save innocent lives? Would Patricia just abandon her once her time was up?

"Oooh, these machine pistols are impressive. I'll take one, barkeep." Patricia said, pointing out an S&S Torment model.

Lilith glanced at it, rolled her eyes, and handed over the credits.

"Patricia, I need to know that I can trust you." Lilith said flatly.

Patricia inserted the credits, and the Torment was beamed into the machine. Patricia picked it up.

"Hey, for the next 40 minutes, you can." Patricia said, admiring the Torment.

"Damn it, Patricia!" Lilith yelled.

Patricia groaned. "Yes, Lilith, you can trust me. Haven't I always been trustworthy?"

With that, before Lilith could respond, Patricia moved on to Zed's machine, and scrolled through the shields. Lilith rubbed her eyes, bemused. This was going to be fun.

Once Patricia got her shield – a deal of the day, plenty of power and advanced regeneration – she and Lilith fired up the Station. Lilith inputed her credentials and selected New Haven, and held her finger over the button.

"Ready?" Lilith asked.

"Let's go." Patricia replied simply.

Lilith readied her Pyre and pushed the button.

---

In a flash of light, Lilith and Patricia appeared in New Haven.

Half the buildings were levelled. Piles of rubble stood in their places, with huge chunks of concrete littering the streets. Scooters' runners lay in a dozen scorched pieces around where they once were.

Blood splatter, detached limbs, and bodies were strewn everywhere. Most were riddled with gunshot wounds or ripped apart by some explosive force, but a few had signs of vicious bites and scratches. Atlas's experiments.

The fight was not over. Citizens and bandits could both be heard screaming and opening fire all around. In fact, three bandits leapt over the wall behind Scooter's shop. Lilith quickly raised her Pyre and fired a short burst into each of them, the last one being hit before he could even touch the ground. The lucky one was killed instantly, while the other two added to the screams as they tried desperately to pat out their flames.

Lilith glanced at Patricia. She had picked up a severed arm, and was staring at the wedding ring still on its finger. Her face betrayed a sign of disgust.

"...what happened to your emotions being dead?" Lilith asked.

"...you're eating into your 20 minutes." Patricia slowly replied, and dropped the arm.

Lilith glanced at Pierce's building. It was still standing.

"Go check on Ms. Scars for Face, I'll keep you clear." Patricia said, unslinging her Lightning.

Lilith jogged to the building, noting bandits and experiments in the distance on the left. She pointed that way to Patricia, who nodded.

Lilith entered the first room, almost stumbling on the small pile of bandit bodies in it, and heard the distinctive sound of a Matador cocking.

"It's me, Pierce!" Lilith yelled.

"...thank god." Pierce replied weakly.

Lilith entered Pierce's room. Her desk had somehow been broken in half. Blood and bullet holes were everywhere. Piece was laying in the far corner. Her right leg was tightly wrapped in a ragged shirt, blood seeping through, and her prosthetic arm was broken. She held a Matador in one hand.

"...are you ok?" Lilith asked, getting on one knee.

"Do I look like I'm fucking okay?!" Pierce demanded, revealing blood stained teeth as she spoke. "What took you so long?!"

"It's a long story. Get up." Lilith said, grabbing Pierce's arm.

"Like hell!" Pierce said, yanking her arm away. "My leg's broken!"

Lilith groaned. The obvious solution was to hand over her regerative shield, but at the moment, she needed it.

"If you let me drag you to the Station, you can use my credentials to teleport somewhere safe." Lilith said.

"Nowhere on Pandora is safe." Pierce winced, adjusting her weight. "Look around. This is two Haven's they've taken."

"...okay, fine, it's not safe. But it has one of Zed's machines and it's not under SEIGE." Lilith replied.

"I'd rather be shot than eaten by skags." Pierce said.

"I was just there. Not a skag for miles." Lilith said. "Come on!"

Pierce paused, then held her arm up. Lilith grabbed it, and helped Pierce to her feet. Pierce had to lean on Lilith, unable to even stand.

Lilith helped Pierce hobble outside. As soon as they stepped into the light, the wall beside them exploded in a hail of gunfire. Lilith dropped Pierce and raised her Pyre, taking aim at the two bandits in front of the Station. They opened fire first, hitting Lilith's shield. Lilith returned fire, easily dropping them.

"Damn it, Lilith!" Pierce screamed, pain saturating her voice.

Before Lilith could respond, an Experiment came out from around the corner on the right. Snarling like an animal, it lunged for Lilith. Suddenly, its head simply exploded, and its body simply fell against Lilith.

"...ew." Lilith said, kicking it away.

Patricia jogged down the street towards them, Lightning in her hand. A New Haven citizen was trailing behind her, holding a Repeater. Suddenly, the citizen took a Matador shot to the side, and was knocked behind a building and out of view in a wave of blood. Patricia raised her Lightning and fired at someone to her left. She then quickly drew her Torment in her right hand and opened fire, chasing someone.

"Let's go." Lilith said, grabbing Pierce by her clothing and yanking her up.

Lilith and Pierce hobbled to the station. A bandit appeared on the roof of Pierce's building. Lilith quickly shot him, then pressed a few buttons on the Station.

"Alright, here, go." Lilith said.

Pierce looked at it, then at Lilith. "I need you to send any survivors here through with me." She said.

"Fine, fine, go." Lilith replied.

Pierce smiled weakly, and pressed a button. She disappeared in a flash of light.

Whatever would soon happen would be interesting. Where would the survivors relocate to? The vines melt and eat people where Lilith just sent Pierce, so Newest Haven probably wouldn't want to live there. Perhaps they could stay in the Eridian wonderland? Running that by Patricia would be fun.

Lilith looked around. Clear for the moment, she quickly reloaded. Time to clean house.


	15. My name is Patricia Tannis

All my life, I has spat on the idea of religion and on the people who followed it. To me, the only things of value in the world were scientific fact.

All my life, I gave no respect to things like music or art. Pointless wastes of time, indulged in by the uneducated, underevolved members of society.

All my life, I scoffed at any kind of philosophical thought. Asking "why" to every answer given to you does not make you a deep thinker. It makes you an immature, unreasonable, uneducated worm.

Now, after so many years on Pandora, a new truth had dawned on me. Nothing in life really mattered. Everything could be taken away from you, and you'd continue living. Nobody was dependable, or reliable, or invariably rational. Pandora was proof that humans evolved from animals, because animals were exactly what every human on this planet was. They slaughtered each other, often for food, and the incompetent invalids who you were forced to call your friends in a place like this were likely to be killed off at any moment. All you could ever truly rely on was yourself.

My sympathy, her sorrow, her anger, they were all gone. People who spoke to me might mistake inflection in my voice as those things, but they simply couldn't tell the difference between the real, and a person going through the motions. My emotions were dead.

My name is Patricia Tannis.

I had begun to relapse, though. Twice in the past day, and both times, just for a moment. The first time happened when that greedy piece of underevolved humanity, Lilith, burst into my place and pinned her gun to my throat. Just for a second, I remembered what it was like to feel fear here on Pandora. Remembering having to play dead while my partner was eaten alive on top of me, remembering that feeling; it all came flooding back, for but a moment. But, thankfully, all that went away pretty quickly.

The second time was just two minutes ago. Something about finding that severed arm, the wedding ring still on it...

I shook it off and remembered where I was. Lilith dragged me to this god-forsaken hick town to rescue the... what looked like five people who had yet to be killed off. Well, four, now that the inbred hack I managed to find alive was killed off when Lilith came out of the office with Scars For Face. He was dead now, just like the husband and wife, who were apparently eviscerated while... damn it, Patricia, no! Stop it! Shake it off...

A pair of bandits had run from me, out of the ruins of the hick town, towards what was once King Weewee's cave. So I ran after them. This was cutting into the 20 minutes, but if they were running that way, that probably meant there'd be a lot more of them in that direction. Killing all the neanderthals in this hick town was a project that was going out with my name on it, so it was going to be done right.

The pair ran through the small collection of pathetic shacks near the cave. One of them dove behind a nearby shack, while the other kept running. The one in hiding came out and took aim at me, but I already had my Tormentor ready. One quick squeeze, and I put seven bullets right through his skull. Very little resistance inside his skull, after all.

The remaining bandit had already reached the top of the hill in front of the cave. He spun around, raised his repeater at me, and opened fire. Two bullets hit my shield before I returned fire, making him back up behind the cover of the hill. I holstered the Tormentor and brought up the Lightning, and began to run up the hill. He stepped forward and took aim, hitting me with another shot. I raised the Lightning, and I saw his eyes widen in fear just before the Lightning bolt blasted his head apart.

I looked around. It was oddly quiet around this area, considering the hell that New Haven was in a state of. I looked at the entrance to the cave, and noticed dozens of footprints, leading in and out of it.

_Something is happening inside._

I quickly looked around for the source of the voice. It was female, and oddly familiar...

But nobody was around. I looked at the entrance of the cave. Maybe I had just imagined the voice, but nevertheless, it was right. The neanderthals who stormed New Haven were likely based in there, at least in part. I reloaded my Tormentor and jogged inside.

Bullet holes and dried blood spatter was everywhere. Lilith's work, probably. I also noticed a fallen grenade, hidden behind a small rock and apparently overlooked by the new guys here. I picked it up and continued on.

"We're all waiting on our money!" I heard from around the corner.

The path turned to the right, then back to the left. I looked around the left corner, and this apparently led to the main area of the cave. The path continued ahead, had a separate trail to the right, and had a ramshackle, neanderthalic sheet metal doorway leading to the left. In the center of this room, a Lance soldier and a deranged bandit with a cleaver were arguing.

"I told you, you'll get paid soon." The soldier replied.

"You've said that over and over!" The bandit yelled. "We want our money now!"

"Just kill him." I muttered.

"And what if we don't pay you, hm?" The soldier asked.

"Then I tell my gang to stop burning New Haven!" The bandit yelled.

The soldier raised his combat rifle and opened fire, burying rounds in the bandits' throat and head. The bandit fell back, head gouged down the middle like a venus flytrap, dead before he hit the ground.

"I guess not." The soldier replied.

I smirked, and had to stop myself from applauding. The bandits refused to be my friends, after all. Fuck them all. But, sadly, Mr. Lance Soldier would have to die too. They wanted to steal the Eridian artifacts, after all. The Eridian research. My Eridian research. Mine!

I raised my Lightning, aimed for his head, and fired. His shield was depleted instantly, and he screamed from the electric shock. I fired again, and down he went, dead and tingling all over.

"Help!" A voice suddenly screamed from the sheet metal doorway.

"Shut up!" Came another voice, from the path up ahead.

I raised my Lightning down the path, waiting for the source of the voice to come and investigate. When nobody came, I approached the sheet metal doorway.

The sheet metal cropped the sides of the doorway, but the door itself was blocked by a shoddily constructed rod-iron door, chained shut. Inside were maybe thirty New Haven citizens.

"Let us out!" One woman yelled, causing the rest of them to notice me and rush the door.

"Keep it the fuck down!" I whispered, looking down the path the voice came from. Luckily, he didn't come to investigate.

"I need to find my brother!" A man protested.

"You want to get shot? Because that's what'll happen if I let you out now." I replied. "This place is probably full of Lance and neanderthals still, the town's levelled, and if your brother was there, he's probably dead." I wiped some blood splatter off myself and showed it to them.

The man took the news hard, quickly looking like he didn't care about anything anymore. The rest of them had faces of sorrow, and I heard a few despaired sniffles. One or two of them, though, also looked at me like I should have broken the news to them a little nicer. I groaned.

"So, what're they doing here? Trying to turn you people into me?" I asked, touching my new body art.

"...pretty much." One man finally said. "But... they also give us lobotomies or something. They degenerate us, they turn us into you, and they make us fight them for sport!"

Sigh, this again. Atlas was full of one-trick ponies. But then, look at their guns. All power, nothing else.

"They..." The man continued, suddenly breaking down in tears. "They did it to my wife... and they made me fight her..."

I paused, staring at him, assimilating the information. They took his wife from him, turned her into an animal, and made him kill her...

I thrust my palm at the chain, the energy blast snapping it in half.

"Alright, here's what you people do." I said, yanking the chain out of the door. "You get out of here, and you run. Run back to whatever's left of New Haven, and find the only other person like me there who won't try to kill you. And you do whatever she says. Think you can handle that?"

Nobody moved.

I yanked the door away from the frame and tossed it aside. "Now!" I demanded.

The man who killed his wife finally took the first step forward, and everyone quickly left the room, running for the exit. I distantly heard a few expressions of gratitude, but... the man's story, the arm with the ring...

_Calm down._

Fuck that. I readied my Lightning and ran down the path where the voice came from. It branches to the right, widening to about 20 feet across. Lining both walls were floors, walls, and little huts of sheet metal. Near the end of this fall, a good 300 feet away, I could see what looked like operating tables.

Five Lance soldiers were here, and I didn't think twice. Raising the Lightning at the nearest one and opened fire. His shields depleted in one shot, but he himself was just fine. He yelped in surprise and turned to look at me, so I gave him a face full of Tormentor rounds for his trouble. Down he went.

The other four, three with assault rifles and one with a matador, turned to me and raised their weapons.

_Phasewalk!_

Who the fuck was that? Whatever, the voice was right. I erupted into the phasewalking dimension in a wave of plasma, and rushed for the two nearest soldiers. With a jump much higher than I otherwise ever could achieve, I leapt up onto the Matador-soldier's shoulders. Seated on him, I erupted back into the real world. The force of the blast slammed him right down on his face, most of his back melted and gone.

The other soldiers were ready, guns already raised. I could dive behind cover against the two distant ones, but the near one would still have a clear shot.

I rushed the near one, my shield taking his rounds. I smacked his gun arm to the side with an energy blast, and quickly strafed to the side, putting his body between me and the two other soldiers.

Like the neanderthal he was, this soldier wound up to try for a huge backhand smack. All this did was expose his shoulder and back to me. I raised my Lightning and blasted him, wiping his shields in one shot. He, however, didn't get any of it, and hit his smack. I was knocked a good ten feet back, landing on a sheet metal floor. Damn, that hurt, but at least he knocked me behind the cover of a sheet metal hut, safe from the other two.

I reached for my Tormentor as he raised his rifle, but it had fallen several feet away. He opened fire, chewing into my shields. As they reached 20%, I raised my Lightning. 5%, and I opened fire. The shock forced his muscles to contract, spraying bullets up the wall and to the ceiling as his arms were yanked up into his chest. Another shot, and down he went.

I scrambled over and grabbed my Tormentor.

_Slow down, don't kill us! Think things through!_

"Shut up!" I yelled. Who the hell was that? Where was she coming from?

My shield began to recharge. I put my back against the shed and waited for the two remaining soldiers. Their heavy footsteps got ever closer. When the nearest one was just a few feet away, I burst into phasewalk yet again. The ramshackle sheet metal was blasted away from the force, slamming into the nearest soldier. It would have just bounced off, but the heat from the blast made it somewhat soft and malleable, bending around him instead.

Keeping this soldier between me and the other, I raised my Tormentor and opened fire. The rounds easily ripped through the sheet metal as he fought to get it off. His shields ran out as the clip depleted, and he stupidly gave me a clear shot through his visor as he struggled. One Lightning shot, and his tiny brain nicely splattered the inside of his tin suit.

The suit remained standing even though the body was dead. Strafing to keep this shield between me and the remaining soldier, I grabbed a grenade off the soldier. I primed the grenade, and shoved the dead soldier over. He fell, and as soon as he had fallen far enough, I threw the grenade. The remaining soldier trained his rifle on me, but the grenade exploded in his face before he could pull the trigger. With his shields gone and shrapnel puncturing his visor, it took one Lightning shot, and down he went.

There didn't appear to be any more Lance. I continued down the path, reaching the operating tables.

There were four of them, each made of a layer of sheet metal placed on top of boxes or chunks of furniture. No bodies this time, but they were covered, and surrounded on the floor, in blood, both fresh and dry. Along the walls on either side of the door to King Weewee's former lair were varying makeshift surgical tools – thinks that would make Doctor Zed look certified.

Suddenly, I heard a slow applause from Weewee's lair, followed by approaching footsteps.


	16. A Modest Proposal

I looked towards the source of the clapping.

I might have called him handsome if I gave a damn. Dirty blond hair, styled nicely enough considering what passed on Pandora as well groomed, clean shaven, wearing cargo pants and a leather jacket.

"Brilliantly executed, my dear. And I mean that both in form, and as in you, killing them, nicely _executed_." He said.

"...thanks, have another example." I said, raising my lightning. I shot him, but his shield took the full force without failing.

"Hold on, let's talk a little." The man said, unflinching. "You'll notice I'm not trying to shoot you back."

"Not my fault you're that stupid." I replied. But I stopped shooting for now. Might as well let him get in some last words.

The man chuckled, smirking.

"Well, let me just ask you something, dear." He said. "Why are you being a thorn in our asses?"

...was he trying to woo me to his side by relating me me? Pitifully transparent, even for a neanderthal. But oh well, might as well placate him.

"I'm keeping all this precious Eridian research and applicable knowledge out of the hands of the pathetic excuses for underevolved humanity I have to share Pandora with." I replied.

"So you get what we're trying to do, then." The man replied with a smile. "That's all we're trying to do."

"No, you're the underevolved humanity I'm trying to keep this stuff away from." I said, tapping my finger on the trigger.

The man smirked. "Now Patricia," He said... how did he know my name? "We're not the shiteating barbarians out there. We're not the goldfish out there making Haven after Haven after Haven, not realizing that a full on city here is a terrible idea. We're not even the pathetic popgun makers like S&S that sell here. We're the Atlas Corporation."

"And?" I asked.

"This research, this technology, in the hands of Atlas..." The man said, "We could make weapons more powerful than any you can imagine. We could put an end to all the others, and we could be the head of it all, the sole manufacturer for every military, every paramilitary, every terrorist organization... one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, after all, so who are we to judge? Point is, the money to be made here... even the janitors of Atlas would be millionaires."

...so? This was supposed to convince me to stop shooting him, the fact that he stood to make a lot of money?

"...I think you can understand why I don't give a damn." I replied. "I worked with you people and you threw me in a holding cell for my trouble."

"And that was terrible, Patricia. I'd have Steele's head for it if she hadn't disappeared..." The man said, "But anyway, that's not all we want to do. The experiments we're doing... oh sure, it goes without saying, we could sell the technology for trillions. But it's not just that. The medical knowledge gained... all the healing technology we already have, we could increase its efficiency tenfold. Diseases? Cured. The dead? Resurrected. They could do it, Patricia, I've read their computer balls. We could figure out how."

"Now you're just screwing with Darwinism." I said. "If people are too stupid to live, you're pissing in the gene pool if you bring them back."

"...so you wouldn't be intrigued if we could bring back your research colleagues? The man who was eaten alive on top of you?" He asked.

That struck a nerve. Remembering his screams, his writhing in agony...

"...don't fucking go there." I swore, raising my Lightning.

"I'm sorry, dear." The man said, taking a cautious step towards me. "But... consider this. If you stand down... all this you've tried to muck up, I can claim the invalids out there did it. I've got plenty of sway with the Board of Directors, you know, and I can get you hired."

I quirked a brow. Atlas already screwed me, and he was trying to seduce me with yet another hiring?

"You're fight for Eridian artifacts? Keep them!" The man continued. "You'd be set up as a research head right back on Earth, away from all this. We'd pack up the Eridian stuff and we'd bring it straight to you. And when your research makes Atlas the richest company in human history, you'd personally stand to make billions. You'd be promoted... hell, we might even grant you a whole separate subsidiary, specifically in charge of Eridian reverse engineering and development."

_Don't listen to him._

"...you people screwed me once already. Prove to me you wouldn't do it again." I said.

"Patricia, dear, you know as well as I do it's virtually impossible to prove a negative." He said with a sigh. "That's why BPA has been used in everyday products since 1950 and STILL is on every chemical watch list there is."

I rolled my eyes at that. Stupidity at its best, that one.

"Sceptical?" He continued. "We need you, Patricia. Look at you. You figured out how to turn yourself into one of these Eridian superwomen. And the look on your face tells me... you remember how you did it."

Curse my lack of a poker face.

"You've been living here for way too long, Patricia." He said. "Don't hide it. You want off this rock, desperately. Let Atlas be your ticket out. We'll bring the artifacts to you, we'll give you back a life worth living. All we ask from you is that you do for us what you love to do anyway. Do your research. Find out everything there ever was to know about the Eridians. Don't tell me you'll turn that down."

_Please do._

...but this was too good an offer to pass up. Get paid, get the Eridian stuff, get away from the hell that is Pandora...

"...you know..." I said, lowering my Lightning. "A few months ago, back when I was scattering my recordings? I was walking around, and I came across one of those pitiful little shacks that people seem to build all over the place. So I went in, to see if it was a good place to hide one of them."

I felt my face betray my emotions in reciting this story. He must have seen it, because he went so far as to deactivate his shield.

"Take your time." He said, taking another step closer. We were within maybe three feet now.

"Thanks..." I said, continuing. "There was nothing really in the shack, just an empty shelving unit. I glanced out the window, and a few dozen yards away, I noticed three or four people there. Criminals, researchers, I couldn't really tell. But they were walking... not really towards the shack, just on a path to walk by it. Anyway, a few dozen more yards to their left, I noticed a pack of skags closing in on them. I figured I could easily outrun them at this range, but you don't survive alone on this rock for as long as I have without being careful. Those things like to attack in multiple packs, and who knew where the other ones were. So I immediately just slammed the door and dragged the shelf in front of the window, barricading myself in. Sitting with my back against the shelf, feet against the door, I was set."

My legs buckled a bit.

"...let's sit." He said, motioning to the wall.

I looked at it... and he put a hand on my back, gently leading me there. I went there and sat, him beside me.

"So..." I said, voice quivering ever so slightly. "I heard some banging and scratching at the door. The skags smelled me in the shed. I had a pathetic little Hyperion repeater, cheapest model they had, what good would it do against two dozen skags? So I kept the door closed, feet right up against it. Then..." I choked up for a second. "...then, whatever was banging at the door let out a scream..."

"...it was a human?" He asked.

"Y-yes..." I said. "I guess he managed to break away from the others and run here. He was trying to get in for a full minute before the skags noticed and got to him. And I... I had to listen to him get eaten alive for... way too long..." I felt a tear stream down one eye.

"...I'm sorry. You did everything a survivor here would have done." He said reassuringly. "You had no way of knowing."

I just sniffled.

"...join Atlas. I can make it happen." He said. "We can get you away from all this."

I slowly nodded.

"...thanks for listening." I said weakly.

"No problem." He replied, wrapping an arm around me.

"...I'd just like one term, if I'm going to do this." I said with a sniffle.

"Yes?" He asked.

I quickly pinned my Tormentor under his chin.

"Grow a brain." I said coldly, and pulled the trigger. A dozen rounds escaped it in one quick burst, splattering blood and brain matter three or four feet up the wall behind us. He fell over to the side, dead.

I stood up, wiping my eyes.

Did that story happen? I don't know, after a while it's hard to differentiate between dreams and what really happened on this rock. But one thing I knew for sure, as I just proved: when your emotions are dead, they're easy to fake.

"Idiot." I said, and walked out.


	17. Round 2

The remains of New Haven appeared to be on fire, but they were just the burning bodies of all the criminals Lilith had killed. And it wasn't over yet. Two psychotic criminals were running for her up ahead, makeshift cleavers in hand, while a third was coming up from behind.

Lilith just smirked and unloaded on the two in front, immediately dropping them. The third criminal came up behind her, and with the shadow he cast, Lilith didn't have to look to see his plan. He went for a decapitating chop, which Lilith ducked under. She grabbed his cleaving arm, ducked out beside him, and gave him a roundhouse kick to the gut. With him staggering, she easily spun his arm around and got him in a hammerlock. She dropped her Pyre, grabbed the cleaver, and kicked him away. He spun around to face her, just in time to see Lilith throw the cleaver at him. It sank in between his eyes, and down he went.

Lilith picked up her Pyre and looked around. That had to be all of them.

Suddenly, footsteps. Dozens of them. Lilith raised her Pyre at the source of the noise.

From around the crude sheetmetal wall came several people. Lilith barely stopped herself from opening fire as she realized these were normal people.

When the people in front saw her, they either stopped dead or tried to back away, making the people behind them bulldoze them awkwardly.

"It's okay, she said we'd find this woman here!" One yelled out.

...did Patricia save these people?

"...red trenchcoat, aviator goggles for some reason, blue tattoos all over, patience of a wolverine?" Lilith asked.

"...yeah, that's her." Another one said. "She said to do what you say."

"...alright, follow me." Lilith said, beckoning with one hand.

Several of them clearly didn't trust her, but mob mentality kicked in. They followed Lilith the short walk to the New U station.

"I'll send you where I sent all the other survivors." Lilith said, putting her credentials in. "Pierce, Marcus, six or seven others. I'll wait for Patricia to show up, then I'll be right behind you." She backed away and motioned for them to use the station.

There was an awkward pause. Finally, one of them stepped forward. He looked at Lilith one final time, and pressed the button. In a flash of light, he disappeared.

The expressions of each of these people ran quite a gamut as they approached the station one by one. Some were clearly terrified of her, some were merely untrusting, some looked like they were only following her commands because they lost all hope anyway, and some wore faces of tear-filled gratitude.

"I... alright, hug later." Lilith said as one of them gave her a tight hug before teleporting away.

When the final one was gone, Lilith looked around. No criminals, no more survivors; aside from the crackling of flames and the light breeze, it was eerily quiet.

Lilith tapped her Echo.

"Patricia, you there?" She asked, but got static in response.

That was odd. Usually when nobody was on the line, there was just silence, not... oh crap.

Lilith raised her Pyre and looked around. Those spheres apparently took care of Commandant Steele, didn't they? Lilith barely survived her last encounter with Steele, and now, there was no Eridian wonderland to help her out.

"Hello, Lilith."

The demonic, croaky voice of Commandant Steele came from behind. Lilith spun around, and came face to face with the apparition. Lilith took a few steps back, as Lilith watched her with a face of twisted, inhuman rage.

"_Privet, Komendant_!" Lilith said in a fake Russian accent. "How many times must I kick your ass?"

"...cute." Steel replied, approaching. "Very... very... CUTE!" She took an awkward swing at Lilith, who ducked under it and strafed behind her.

"I'll be here all week." Lilith said, backing away. "So, may I help you?"

"...you can help me... by burning with the world!" Steele yelled, and dove for Lilith.

Lilith erupted into a phasewalk, the blast knocking Steele away. Lilith wasn't sure how long she could keep the phasewalk up, but it wasn't forever. She had to think of something, and quick.

Lilith went forward and delivered a kick to Steele's chest. Steele took a step back to absorb the impact, but was otherwise unharmed. Lilith dove for Steele, taking her to the ground. She mounted Steele and delivered several punches to the face.

Steele's arm suddenly grew into a massive tentacle. With one massive sweep, she smacked Lilith off her. Lilith few several feet away before landing on her back.

Lilith scrambled to her feet. Steele had already made it to hers, and was approaching, her arms normal once again. Lilith went for a kick again, trying to keep Steele at bay. Steele caught Lilith's ankle and harshly kicked Lilith's standing knee. She released Lilith's ankle in the fall, making her land in awkward splits. Damn, that hurt.

Steele followed up with a kick to Lilith's face, knocking her on her back. Steele dove onto Lilith and attempted a stranglehold. Lilith quickly grabbed Steele's wrist, holding it in place, and chopped at that arm's elbow. Forcing it to bend, Steele was yanked closer. Lilith headbutted Steele, loosening her grip, then backhanded her away. Steele landed on her back, and the two scrambled to their feet.

Lilith went for a quick suckerpunch, which Steele ducked under. Steele put her leg behind Liliths', and pushed her back into it, tripping her and sending her to her back. Steele again dove on and throttled Lilith. Lilith tried to chop Steele's arm again, but this time, Steele grabbed Lilith's hand in her own.

"You can't beat me!" Steele said darkly.

Steele's arms again slowly transformed into tentacles, her strangling hand now wrapping around Lilith;s neck and constricting. Lilith struggled to pry it off, but couldn't. What was odd was that she never had to breathe while phasewalked before, but now, she felt herself losing consciousness. How was Steele doing all this?

Lilith burst out of her phasewalk, unleashing a wave of energy. Steele was knocked off of her, landing on her back several feet away.

The world was spinning, and her head was pounding. Lilith was used to staying phasewalked for a few seconds, not several minutes. Lilith scrambled away from Steele, first crawling away, then getting to her feet and stumbling away. What else could she do? The only thing that seemed to hurt Steele was huge bursts of energy. She had no Eridian weapons on her, and though she maybe had a phasewalk left in her, one more wasn't going to cut it.

"You can't run, my dear!" Steele taunted, getting to her feet.

Lilith stumbled into Marcus's place, hoping something there would be of some help. Pretty much everything had already been cleaned out by citizens or criminals in the battle. Only a few repeaters and grenades remained. Cursing under her breath, Lilith went behind Marcus's counter, hoping some of his 'premium' stuff was in a hidden compartment or something in his desk.

The desk had a few drawers across the top, and though the left leg was just a large block of wood, the right leg had a cabinet. Hopeful, Lilith rifled through them.. and found only useless papers and a few scattered bullets, spilled from whatever clips had been there.

_The left leg has a loose panel._

That voice again. Lilith didn't bother looking around for its source though. She looked at the leg, and realized the voice was right. The leg was made of four sheets of metal screwed together, and the leg closest to her had but one screw holding it on, and it was loose. Lilith quickly yanked it off.

There was a Hyperion repeater in there, probably a really high priced model, but more importantly, there was an Eridian sphere – one of the ones that seemed to enhance the effects of Lilith's phasewalking.

Steele stepped through the doorway.

"Nowhere to run, Lilith." She said, approaching. "I told you then and I'll tell you now: Pandora belongs to the Atlas Corporation, and you, my dear, you belong to me!"

Lilith aimed her Pyre at Steele, knowing fullwell it was useless. Steele smirked.

"Go ahead, take your best shot." She taunted.

Would this work on Eridian technology? Well, she had no other plan. Lilith gave Steele a defiant smirk, aimed at the sphere, and opened fire.

There was a blinding flash of steely blue light, and everything went black.


	18. Welcome to the other side

Lilith found herself back in the Eridian structure, in the room that assaulted her and Patricia with vivid hallucinations. It was exactly as she left it, with bullet holes everywhere, some of the glowing Eridian patterns knocked out in the areas the bullets hit. Lilith knew this was another vision, but this time, her field of view wasn't clouded the further she looked from where she was standing. Everything was exactly like reality.

Lilith looked around the room, not seeing anyone or anything of note. After completing a slow rotation to examine everything, she turned back to the stone pedestal in the middle of the room.

Her lookalike was sitting there, a smile on her face.

"You really have to stop wrecking all our stuff." Lookalike said.

"...you can see me?" Lilith asked.

"See, hear, the works." Lookalike replied, pushing herself to her feet. "Anyway, nicely done. Our first few times encountering displaced beings, we lost quite a few people."

"...what the hell are you?" Lilith asked.

Lookalike chuckled and nodded.

"Alright, fair enough." She said. "My name is Relaine. I was the lead programmer on the Big Bounce Project, here on 'Pandora'."

"...you're... an Eridian?" Lilith asked, eyes wide.

"...well done, two and two do indeed make four." Lookalike, Relaine said with a smirk.

...why did she look like Lilith then? And even if that wasn't an issue, one had to assume that all the other people Relaine interacted with in the visions were Eridians, too, right? Why did they all look human? So many questions to ask...

"The answer is really quite simple." Relaine said, as if reading her mind. "But you kind of have to know the whole story."

The world around them seemed to melt away. In its place, the room the cylinder and all the equipment were in from the last vision appeared.

"You see, this is how we lived." Relaine said. "We were a race of scientists. Virtually every citizen, in one way or another, aided in our research of anything and everything. Our cities... we had no 'industry', no 'capitalism', no 'roads', nothing like that. We had reached a point where all industry, all manufacturing, everything was completely automated. The only thing for citizens to do was learn, teach, and try to improve everything we had already established."

"...no roads?" Lilith asked.

"What, you think those 'New U' stations were something you people came up with?" Relaine asked with a smirk. "Teleportation. Plus, a 'city' was essentially one massive building, stretching for thousands of miles, divided into sectors for different things."

"...I take it Greenpeace wasn't around in your day." Lilith said.

"Actually, we did that _for_ the environment. Oh sure, we leveled a good section of the planet, but that was it. It was perfectly self contained. We got our raw materials from dead asteroids comprised of whatever materials we needed, our cities had 'greenhouses', as you'd call them, for our food, water was recycled. Once we built up our section of the planet, the rest of it was untouched."

"Then why are there so many clearly different buildings on Pandora?" Lilith asked.

"I'm getting to that!" Relaine said. "Eesh, you're so impatient. Work on that."

"And you're a body snatcher. We all have our crosses to bear." Lilith replied with a smirk.

Relaine smirked, and suddenly, she began to transform. Her hair grew longer and became pure white, her face and body in general simply changed to... something of an Irish complexion, and her attire changed to a standard white coat and dress pants uniform.

"This is who I was." Relaine said, her voice changed as well. She now sounded exactly like the voices Lilith kept hearing. "Now you work on your patience."

Lilith stared at her in surprise.

"Yes, I was the voice." Relaine said, smiling.

"...you people looked like humans?" Lilith asked.

"Getting to that!" Relaine said. "Now, as the years passed, our people started looking into theories regarding a multiverse. Alternate dimensions, timelines, all that stuff. Then..." Her smile faded. "We tapped into a dimension we shouldn't have."

"...Event Horizon?" Lilith asked.

"Decent movie. I'll get to why I caught that reference later." Relaine said. "But no, we didn't break into mutilation and sodomy the second the portal opened. Instead... the Destroyer came."

Lilith's eyes widened slightly. She nodded in understanding.

"We don't know much about it, whether it was just one creature that overtook that universe, if it was just one of a whole civilization of them, or anything." Relaine continued. "We shut the portal down the second that thing emerged, but that didn't take care of it itself. Inside a few of your measure of days, it utterly destroyed one of our most populated worlds. And then... well, then it began to hunt us all down."

"...how did it get from planet to planet?" Lilith asked.

"...you didn't see it at full power." Relaine replied. "You fought it with half of it stuck in another dimension. It was telekinetic, it could create wormholes in reality for travel... we had an empire of 42 worlds, and inside of one of your months, we were reduced to just one."

"Pandora." Lilith finished.

"Pandora." Relaine confirmed. "So... we knew we couldn't kill it. We tried every one of our weapons, even resorted to the proverbial atom bomb, but nothing worked. So, we were left with one final idea." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small sphere, identical to Lilith's. Just like for Lilith, it glowed on touch.

"...what are those things?" Lilith asked.

The world seemed to melt away again. This time, they appeared in a small clearing. Three cavemen were there, huddled around a pile of twigs. They were rubbing two sticks together, apparently trying to make fire.

"One of the worlds we didn't actually build on, but were watching for a long time, was Earth." Relaine continued. "It intrigued us because one of the earliest forms of modern humans, given the same conditions we evolved from, could have conceivably ended up evolving into Eridians themselves. We didn't really touch them though, just watched with intrigue from afar. But when the Destroyer came..."

Another Relaine, apparently part of this vision, stepped into view. As Lilith watched, she gently grabbed the caveman's hands and adjusted them. After moving his hands to rub the sticks again a few times, she let go and let him do it. And sure enough, after a few moments, fire.

"...you made us become humans?" Lilith asked.

"We made you become Eridians." Relaine replied with a smile. "It could have happened naturally, but... well, we helped."

The Relaine in the vision pulled out a syringe and proceeded to inject the cavemen. They didn't look like they particularly enjoyed it, but they did nothing to stop it.

So that's why they looked like humans, and that's why that defense system back in the Eridian wonderland was suited so perfectly to manipulating the human brain. It was starting to come together...

"...but what does that have to do with the spheres?" Lilith asked.

The world again melted away, returning to the room with all the equipment.

"We came up with a plan to lure the Destroyer to an empty dimension, trapping it there." Relaine continued. "But with our numbers reduced to a few dozen and our cities in utter ruins, we knew we couldn't continue to live as anything more than nomadic tribes. We might have still been alive, but our people as we knew them were extinct." She tossed the sphere in her hand. "So, we came up with the Big Bounce Project. We had a different word for it, but it's basically named after that ultimate fate of the universe theory."

Relaine looked the sphere over before continuing.

"Now, as you've already learned, the Panacea Viability Test can tell whether or not a person can be modified, like you are." Relaine said. "But it can also test whether or not a person is viable for one of these."

"And what are those?" Lilith asked.

"They... they trap the consciousness." Relaine said slowly.

"...what?" Lilith asked.

"When a person dies." Relaine continued. "If a suitable candidate is holding one of these, when it senses the person holding it has flatlined, it makes a perfect copy of that person's brain activity and stores it in here... or maybe it takes the soul of a person, who knows, even we Eridians weren't beyond having a spiritual side. After all, as you saw, apparitions _do_ exist."

Lilith opened her mouth to speak, but stopped herself.

"I'll get to that later, yes." Relaine said. "Now, these spheres can also modify a person, like you are now. All suitable candidates made sure we were holding one of these when our time came. And when that happened, the others made sure to retrieve our spheres and bring them here, to Pandora. We did this because we knew that... in a few thousand years, you future Eridians... you humans, you children of ours, would eventually become spacefaring people. You'd come here, you'd find the spheres, and suitable candidates from your people would eventually come into contact with them."

"...modifying us." Lilith said. "But why would you want your consciousness..." She then put it together.

Relaine nodded. "With that modification, whichever one of us had stored herself in the sphere would make the jump... to your body. That's why I can speak to you. I... I live in your mind now."

"...'we'll live on through our children.'" Lilith quoted.

"'See you on the other side.'" Relaine replied, smiling. "Take your time."

Lilith rubbed her forehead and looked around aimlessly, trying to absorb all this. Their plan was an odd one, but Lilith supposed it was as good a plan as any if your species was basically extinct anyway.

Lilith then remembered Patricia taking the place of Relaine's friend in the visions.

"So... when your friend became Patricia in my visions...?" Lilith asked.

"That's the precise moment Patricia touched one of the spheres here." Relaine replied. "My friend now lives inside yours."

"...huh." Lilith said. "...would this work on me, too? If I died?"

"I'm not sure if the sphere would be overpowered by your implementation of the New U stations, since it's very similar technology." Relaine said. "But short answer, yes. It works on anyone who can make it glow on touch. That's why it didn't glow for your friend at first, but now does. The modification also made her viable for these."

Lilith again looked around, taking this all in.

"...what happened to Commandant Steele?" Lilith finally asked.

"Ah, right." Relaine said. "How much technobabble are you comfortable with?"

"...short version." Lilith said with a smirk.

"Ha." Relaine said. "Well, I wasn't there, but I'm assuming this: when you left the Destroyer there, one of the Guardians came to the scene. They're programmed to study everything not hostile, basically just as we did. So when it came across the recently dead Destroyer, all it saw was a new lifeform to examine. So, like the spheres, it tried to copy its brainwaves."

"...that's a stupid idea." Lilith said.

"They're preprogrammed, what can you do." Relaine replied. "Anyway, since the Destroyer recently ate Steele, the Guardian must have copied her brainwaves as well. An error must have occurred, and they merged."

"...and how did she materialize like that?" Lilith asked.

"That's... not something we ever got to fully understand." Relaine replied. "When a person is trapped in the sphere and really wants to escape... basically, sometimes, they do indeed find a way. And sadly, the only people so desperate to escape are the ones who want to exact some kind of revenge on someone. That's why we had those defenses set up specifically for apparitions."

"Huh..." Lilith said, taking that all in. "...did I kill her?"

"She's technically not alive." Relaine replied. "And... I don't know. The only thing that can hurt apparitions are extreme bursts of energy. EMPing them, basically. There's an extreme amount of energy stored in those orbs, so you definitely took her out of commission for a while. But as for permanently being gone... I don't know. The Destroyer is a variable I don't know enough to make estimates on."

"Great..." Lilith said.

There was an awkward pause.

"So... what now?" Lilith asked.

"That's your call. I may be in your mind, but this is your life." Relaine said. "If you want to help us, give us a second life by living by our example. Try to get your people to adopt our technology and our way of life."

"...I'm just a mercenary." Lilith said.

Relaine shrugged. "Do your best." She replied. "Again, this is your life, I'm just cheating death for a few more years. But... that's my humble request. Don't let the Eridians die out. And... don't meddle with alternate dimensions." She gave a weak smile.

"I... we'll see." Lilith said, rubbing her forehead again.

Relaine nodded in understanding.

"One more thing." She said. "A bunch of us, including my friend and I, went into this with the mindset that we shouldn't interfere with the lives of our hosts."

"...you're breaking that vow bigtime right now." Lilith said with a smirk.

"Yep." Relaine replied. "I didn't realize the mess your people would be in on this planet. The things Atlas is doing... but anyway, my friend is likely still living by that vow, so if you don't mind, tell her she can break it."

"...just by saying it to Patricia?" Lilith asked. "That'll make for an awkward conversation."

"Good luck." Relaine said with a smirk. "I'm sure my friend will get the ball rolling once you tell her she can."

Lilith paused, then nodded.

"Alright, I'll try my best." She said.

"Thank you." Relaine replied. "Well, time for you to wake up, you've got Pierce to take care of."

"...oh great, trying to get Patricia to agree to let them move into your building, that'll be fun." Lilith said. "...hey! You watch me when I shower!"

"...wakey wakey." Relaine said with a smirk. She snapped her fingers, and Lilith awoke.

* * *

Marcus's store was obliterated by the blast; scraps of wood and scorched dirt lay in its place. Lilith was thrown clear, likely only saved by her regenerative shield. She had landed on her stomach near the New U station, her Pyre a few feet away.

Lilith groaned and got to her feet. The shield helped, but her muscles still ached and her head still pounded. She didn't want to have to go through that again. And if Steele wasn't 'dead', she might have to...

"There you are!"

Lilith spun around to see who it was. And it was Patricia. She was covered in a fair amount of blood splatter, but seemed fine otherwise.

"You get the survivors?" Patricia asked.

"Yep, all relocated." Lilith replied. "Did we keep to your precious schedule?" She smirked.

"Just barely." Patricia said. "We'll have to speed back."

Lilith shook her head, amused. Patricia just walked to the New U station, and moved to use it. Lilith grabbed her hand.

"Before we go, I need to talk to you about something..." Lilith began.

_Good luck, Lilith. Ha._


	19. Thanks for reading

Well that's it, c'est fin. I do have future stories in mind that will pick up where this left off, but for now, let's hear your overall reviews. I had fun writing this, despite some long writer's blocks, and I hope you enjoyed reading it.


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